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Scifi discuss - for people who already know the classics


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I've been reading science fiction since I was about 12 and I've read a lot. It's my main reading genre. I like space opera, time travel, first contact, post apocalyptic but NO fantasy. No witches, horror, spell, or paranormal activity that isn't based in science some way. Like Anne McCaffrey's dragons have a real basis for existence on their world and are not mystical beings. I'm always interested in new authors and new titles. I like Alastair Reynolds, Peter Hamilton, Neal Asher, Kim Stanley Robinson, the late Iain M Banks, etc. Tell me what you like. I am not a fan of Kevin A Anderson who is too heavy-handed and bombastic for my tastes. I also don't do graphic novels, which doesn't mean I don't love the movies made from comic books! I love all scifi movies and TV. So, anybody out there?
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Yeah, I'm a big SF fan too. Love Reynolds (House of Suns and Chasm City, particularly), Asher, Banks, and a lot of the classics, too, like Wells and Verne, and stuff like Bester's The Stars My Destination and John Wyndham. Haldeman's Forever War. Hamilton's Night's Dawn trilogy.

 

My two favourites are probably Vernor Vinge (A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky) and Peter Watts (Blindsight and Echopraxia). Herbert's Dune, of course. Got a lot of time for C J Cherryh, Richard Morgan and Ian McDonald, too.

 

ETA: Oh, and Stephen Baxter. His book Voyage, about the first manned mission to Mars, is awesome.

 

ETA2: and how could I possibly forget Dick and Bradbury! :doh:

Edited by willowroolz
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Yeah, I'm a big SF fan too. Love Reynolds (House of Suns and Chasm City, particularly), Asher, Banks, and a lot of the classics, too, like Wells and Verne, and stuff like Bester's The Stars My Destination and John Wyndham. Haldeman's Forever War. Hamilton's Night's Dawn trilogy.

 

My two favourites are probably Vernor Vinge (A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky) and Peter Watts (Blindsight and Echopraxia). Herbert's Dune, of course. Got a lot of time for C J Cherryh, Richard Morgan and Ian McDonald, too.

 

ETA: Oh, and Stephen Baxter. His book Voyage, about the first manned mission to Mars, is awesome.

 

ETA2: and how could I possibly forget Dick and Bradbury! :doh:

 

Haldeman and Vinge are super. And Dune. I love CJ Cherryh's Foreigner series and hope she keeps churning them out. I want more Richard Morgan! I don't know Watts so there are new titles for me. I also forgot Neil Stephenson. All of his are great.

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I love CJ Cherryh's Foreigner series and hope she keeps churning them out. I want more Richard Morgan! I don't know Watts so there are new titles for me.

 

Yeah, the Foreigner series is great. She does alien cultures better than just about anyone. Love her Alliance/Union stuff, too.

 

If you like your SF very hard and very dark, give Watts a go. There's an omnibus edition called Firefall that contains both Blindsight and Echopraxia. I wrote a review of Blindsight over here.

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Sci-fi is my favorite genre to read but I'm not stuck in just literal stuff. I like fantasy thrown in as well. Anything that makes me think.
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I've heard nothing but positive reviews of Verner Vinge so I should read him. As for hard core science fiction I recently read Neal Stephenson's Seven Eves...that is some hard, technical fiction & he's a great writer but I didn't love it. Dune of course which is excellent but I never followed up with the sequels.

 

Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun & Urth of the New Sun are my current obsession because it's so damned hard to figure out...Wolfe comes at you with archaic & fabricated language and sometimes the plot and actual events are mentioned in a passing, oblique reference it's difficult, yet irresistible, to try and decipher.

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Frank Herbert (Dune and other novels)

Isaac Asimov (Foundation series, Robot series)

Arthur C. Clarke (many, many novels)

Robert Heinlein (Lazarus Long, Stranger In A Strange Land, etc.)

Larry Niven (Ringworld, The Integral Trees)

Dan Simmons (Hyperion)

Anne McCaffrey (Pern series)

Fred Saberhagen (The Berserker series)

Piers Anthony (Xanth series, Incarnations of Immortality series)

 

The worst mistake I ever made was reading Kevin J. Anderson's pathetic attempt at finishing the Dune series. What a freaking HACK. It was an utter embarrassment reading that crap.

Edited by Principled Man
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I welcome modern suggestions that are classic in style

 

Peter Hamilton and Richard Morgan are pretty classic in style. Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy and his climate change trilogy are the same. There are some novels that take place on a future Earth and then those that are in space far in the future. James AS Corey's novels from which the TV series The Expanse was taken are recommended highly although I haven't read them myself. Anne Leckie's Ancillary series is outstanding if a little mind bending. Nathan Lowell writes what I would call "cozy" scifi, very character driven. And very addictive.

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Frank Herbert (Dune and other novels)

Isaac Asimov (Foundation series, Robot series)

Arthur C. Clarke (many, many novels)

Robert Heinlein (Lazarus Long, Stranger In A Strange Land, etc.)

Larry Niven (Ringworld, The Integral Trees)

Dan Simmons (Hyperion)

Anne McCaffrey (Pern series)

Fred Saberhagen (The Berserker series)

Piers Anthony (Xanth series, Incarnations of Immortality series)

 

The worst mistake I ever made was reading Kevin J. Anderson's pathetic attempt at finishing the Dune series. What a freaking HACK. It was an utter embarrassment reading that crap.

 

Yes to all of the above but I haven't read Saberhagen. Kevin J Anderson's Seven Suns series is also awful. Repetitive and predictable. I hate novels when I know what's going to happen from the first page.

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Tbh, I have never read any of this stuff, but I wanna check some out.

 

What are good ones to start with??

 

For space opera Nathan Lowell is good. Just start at the beginning. I think the Kim Stanley Robinson Mars trilogy is good but it does get politically dense. How much do you like violence? I like Neal Asher but he can be heavy on futuristic blood and gore. The Breakers series by somebody Robinson is a good alien invasion apocalypse series. All of these are Kindle available (I use the Kindle app on my iPad)). There's tons of new self-published stuff that's cheap and sometimes really good. Nathan Lowell started out as a podcast. Sign up to BookBub and get notices of cheap or even free new novels.

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Tbh, I have never read any of this stuff, but I wanna check some out.

 

What are good ones to start with??

 

For space opera Nathan Lowell is good. Just start at the beginning. I think the Kim Stanley Robinson Mars trilogy is good but it does get politically dense. How much do you like violence? I like Neal Asher but he can be heavy on futuristic blood and gore. The Breakers series by somebody Robinson is a good alien invasion apocalypse series. All of these are Kindle available (I use the Kindle app on my iPad)). There's tons of new self-published stuff that's cheap and sometimes really good. Nathan Lowell started out as a podcast. Sign up to BookBub and get notices of cheap or even free new novels.

 

Thanks for the info!

 

I like violence in books

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