Favorite sci-fi books?

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The 3 Pillers of the of the Golden Age arguably was Clarke, Asinov, and Heinlein.
But there was a 4th Piller and her name was The Great Dame of Science Fiction and Fantasy.... Andre Norton.

If you want a fun book to read go ahead and try

The Doomfarers of Coramonde.

It was of the first books I can remember in the late 70's Think of sqaud Vietnam troops in a M113 fighting off a Dragon. Since Brian Daley did a year of Service over there I think this was the first book of accurate use of modern day weaponry in a Fantasy Setting. So this sort of a Sci fi/Fantasy book of its time and I believe the first this style of format. Modern day weapons going to another reality.

Going to power level a bit.
I was bless to be part of the dawn of the RPG age in the early 70's I met a lot of authors, both SFI and Fantasy.

I also laugh at the cosplayers of today. They think they are sexy wearing skimpy outfits.

But mannnnnn. I went to conventions in the 70's and 80's and seeing naaaaked chicks in loin cloths and when they cosplay, hahahahaha everything was shown. Titty Bar in Spaaaaccceee!!!

Don't believe me you can find that out in the interwebs. Wendy Penni Of Elf Quest Fame comes to mind. She's was a nice lady. She wore some revealing costumes with taste. Her husband.... I think was vote the person who was going to get shanked on the back one day.

Fun times man... fun times.
 
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Reverend said:
Galaxy's Edge series. It's fucking amazing sci-fi that makes star wars look like rainbow brite. It's how a sci-fi world SHOULD be.

Make sure you read them in the MAXIMUM SUSPENSE version. Worth it.
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So I started listening to this, Legionaire was alright, Tin-man was a cute story, but I'm a third of the way through Galatic Outlaws and I'm finding it very... amateurish? It feels like it's an entire cast of Mary Sues and I'm having a harder time getting into it. Is it the style or is it the author's getting their feet under them?
 
Polyboros2 said:
So I started listening to this, Legionaire was alright, Tin-man was a cute story, but I'm a third of the way through Galatic Outlaws and I'm finding it very... amateurish? It feels like it's an entire cast of Mary Sues and I'm having a harder time getting into it. Is it the style or is it the author's getting their feet under them?
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Author getting their feet under them as both work in/around Hollywood so they feel like very space opera-like. Not all are mary sues, lots of folks die (not GRRM style), but there's enough turnover and loss where it doesn't feel stale. You have main characters who have shit happen to them but none of them are 100% good/bad. This series does a real good job of you wanting the "bad guys" to win.

It's definitely more military driven in the later books. Any of the stories of T-Rex are enjoyable. They are fun, pulpy, and quick reads.
 
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BullDogsLipBrandClamjuice said:
"The coming Race" is my favorite-
which sounds like some neo nazi shit but it's one of the 1st sci fi novels. It came out in the late 19th century, claiming the events actually happened.
Basically a young man hears of a series of underground caverns from a friend who's shaken from what he's seen. The 2 go down how ever far into a mine shaft and the buddy falls to his death, and the young man is stuck with out a back up.
Down there he see's strange creatures, ends up meeting some humaniods who resemble those winged people on the sides of greek vases.
Turns out the main humanoid has a daughter who's in university and ends up teaching the man the language. and they sorta have a thing for each other. I forget the details but the underground societies are with out war, and harness the power of the Vril Device. They also have a form of flight/gliding with artificial wings.
It's a really good book, it's told from a 1st person perspective, almost like the guy is telling you about what happened over a drink.
The book goes really deep into the culture of the Vril society, even going on to explain the language. I was learning an actual language at the time and was already drowning in verb endings so I bailed on the book, but once I find it again I plan on diving right back in. I really did not do this book any justice but I reccomend you look into it. That way when you hear some retard going on about the hollow earth and the secret vril society, you'll know where it came from.

I listened to the War of the Worlds audio book and it blows the movie out of the water. Aliens attacking Victorian England was really right up my ally. I didnt expect it to be that dark. Gave me some fucked up nightmares when I fell asleep listening to it.

H.G. Welles Time Machine was pretty damn good too, I don't know why I never got through it. I always get to the part when the time traveler gets to the future and goes looking around, and when he comes back to where he "parked" the machine is gone and the dude freaks and pleads with the future people, but they kinda laugh at how odd he is. The traveler ends up hanging around some future chick who get's attached to him, and she's really amused by lit matches. They lost match technology in the future, cause why not.

I like this book so much that when I was at the university I wrote many essays that revealed certain aspects of this book. I was very much helped by the service https://assignmentbro.com/uk/do-my-assignment with which I collaborated throughout my studies and which helped me with my homework written assignments when I did not have enough time.
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Great book, I agree
 
Alastair Reynolds; Revelation Space series for epic hard sci-fi space opera, along with his stand-alone short compilations & novels.

Also, the massively Chinese-funded movie Mortal Engines plagiarized the main plot element & story arc from his last trilogy book, Absolution Gap; while colorswapping fanatical religion with fascist city-statism, and the gap for a Fucking Huge Chinese dam.
 
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Eon by Greg bear.
Dune
The sparrow,
A planet named shayol
Jasper fforde’s stuff is fun and silly but with a dark edge to it.
Nightfall by asmiov
Solaris
The mote in gods eye
My favourites are the golden age short stuff. I have a huge pile of books that are out of print now which are amazing. Look and see if you can find the ‘spectrum’ anthologies of short stories - they have fantastic short stories in from the golden age. So often I see a film and think ‘that’s based on that story, now what was it called…?’ ‘Pitch black’ for example (which isn’t a bad movie imo, not trying to be anything too deep) is clearly inspired by ‘nightfall.’
Really anything by ray bradbury, Asimov, Clarke, poul Anderson, heinlein, Stanislaw lem, Niven/Pournell, cordwainer smith, Philip k dick, Vonnegut… I’m sure I’ve missed loads.
 
Stanisław Lem has long been one of my favorites, but a lot of his work is less science fiction and more satire and philosophy set in space. You're more likely to enjoy Lem if you enjoyed Jorge Luis Borges than if you enjoyed Star Wars. The Star Diaries were easier to understand because I understood the context he was writing in, but Solaris went a bit over my head when I first read it.
 
Magicicada_septendecula said:
Stanisław Lem has long been one of my favorites, but a lot of his work is less science fiction and more satire and philosophy set in space. You're more likely to enjoy Lem if you enjoyed Jorge Luis Borges than if you enjoyed Star Wars. The Star Diaries were easier to understand because I understood the context he was writing in, but Solaris went a bit over my head when I first read it.
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The Futurological Congress, whose main character is also Ijon Tichy, is very approachable and very funny.
 
A Hymn Before Battle by John Ringo kicks off one of my favorite sci-fi series.

Dune is great, but I still need to slog my way through the sequels one day.

The Prince Roger series by John Ringo is also really good.

Gun Runner by Larry Correia is amazing.
 
I love Delta-v and Alien in a Small Town.

Delta-v is a thriller about the first mission to mine an asteroid. Realistic near-future ship design, as the name implies it's the sort of book where people are still measuring ships capabilities by their delta-v. The first half feels like The Right Stuff with the boot camp type stuff, the second half like The Martian when everything goes to hell. It's a rare book that uses real world Space Law for major plot points and drama.

Alien in a Small Town is a contemplative, philosophical like book about unrequited asexual romantic love and man's relation to technology. In a distant future, Earth that is a protectorate of nasty tentacle rock monsters, the Pennsylvania Amish are chugging along like usual when one day a tentacle rock monster moves into town ready to convert to their faith. He befriends the black sheep of the community (a former engineer that returned home) and it blossoms into a one-sided romantic infatuation, completely asexual because she's not a sexy rock monster. Life happens and melodrama. Eventually the rock monster (confronting the ghosts of his past, which lead him to his Christianity obsession) goes home to use his lessons about human psychology to start a civil rights movement for the betterment of his people's disciriminated soldier caste. In the end he and the engineer live out the rest of their days, long after her husband dies, as sort of best friends until she dies of old age. The ending scene is one of the most stirring things - make a person cry - I've ever read, captures an aspect of grief that I think is often unexplored, the mixed feelings of anger and despair combined with gratefulness that come in when a person's loved one died a completely natural death at the end of a good life.
 
I will go with Jules Verne . All his books are great.
My favorites are Journey to the Center of the Earth, Off on a Comet and The Begum's Fortune
 
Sorrell said:
Earth Abides by George R. Stewart....
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One of my Top 5 sci-fi novels of all time:

Earth-Abides.jpg
 
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