Sci-Fi BOOKS - what do you recommend?

[Archie the Preacher]

Roger Zelazny - The Amber series and pretty much anything else

Glen Cook - the Garrett, P. I. novels. The Black Company series I didn't enjoy so much.

Tolkien has been mentioned, but I cannot not mention him in good faith.

 

[Matthew Scanlon]

Hello,

Not sure if anyone mentions Nathan Lowell " Quarter Share" all part of his Golden Age of the Solar Clipper, is very good.

The "Expanse" Series by James S.A. Corey

Also Jim Butcher's Aeronaut Windlass is Fanasty Sci-Fi and very very good.

 

[Matthew Scanlon]

Also forgot anything by Brandon Sanderson, Brent Weeks, Peter V Brett, and Brian McClellan

 

[Greatcloud]

Avoid anything with very scantily clad women on the cover they are generally cheap pulp stuff.

 

[keith99]

Avoid anything with very scantily clad women on the cover they are generally cheap pulp stuff.

A lot of the pulp stuff was far better than a lot of what is being written today.

 

[Archie the Preacher]

Roger Zelazny - The Amber series and pretty much anything else

Glen Cook - the Garrett, P. I. novels. The Black Company series I didn't enjoy so much.

Tolkien has been mentioned, but I cannot not mention him in good faith.

I see I need to clear up one of my statements..

J. R. R. Tolkien is one of my favorite authors. Other than being somewhat 'wordy', I find Tolkien excellent in both literary ability and expression. I said, "...I cannot mention him in good faith" only in the sense he isn't a Sci-Fi writer. He is a master story-teller of the "Fantasy" genre. He is most acceptable from either a literary or Christian view.

 

[Archie the Preacher]

A lot of the pulp stuff was far better than a lot of what is being written today.

May I add a number of buxom female figures were added to the covers of various and sundry books which had absolutely nothing to do with the story line as a marketing ploy to attract male readers.

 

[keith99]

May I add a number of buxom female figures were added to the covers of various and sundry books which had absolutely nothing to do with the story line as a marketing ploy to attract male readers.

Have you ever read Bored of the Rings? by Harvard Lampoon. I don't remember much but the one thing I do remember is it has a cover blurb about a Dragon on rollerskates that is rather sexual and so strange one becomes quite curious just how they managed to get in that situation. Such blurbs are often excerpts that are not indicative of the whole work. In this case it is an excerpt that is nowhere to be found in the work.

 

[Archie the Preacher]

Have you ever read Bored of the Rings? by Harvard Lampoon. I don't remember much but the one thing I do remember is it has a cover blurb about a Dragon on rollerskates that is rather sexual and so strange one becomes quite curious just how they managed to get in that situation. Such blurbs are often excerpts that are not indicative of the whole work. In this case it is an excerpt that is nowhere to be found in the work.

I studiously avoided 'Bored of the Rings'. I still do.

 

[Archie the Preacher]

Have you ever read Bored of the Rings? by Harvard Lampoon. I don't remember much but the one thing I do remember is it has a cover blurb about a Dragon on rollerskates that is rather sexual and so strange one becomes quite curious just how they managed to get in that situation. Such blurbs are often excerpts that are not indicative of the whole work. In this case it is an excerpt that is nowhere to be found in the work.

I studiously avoided 'Bored of the Rings'. I still do.

 

[Archie the Preacher]

Have you ever read Bored of the Rings? by Harvard Lampoon. I don't remember much but the one thing I do remember is it has a cover blurb about a Dragon on rollerskates that is rather sexual and so strange one becomes quite curious just how they managed to get in that situation. Such blurbs are often excerpts that are not indicative of the whole work. In this case it is an excerpt that is nowhere to be found in the work.

I studiously avoided 'Bored of the Rings'. I still do.

 

[Mountain_Girl406]

I also recommend Parable of the Sower, or anything else by Octavia Butler. Parable of the Sower is a bit scary to read now, though, like The Handmaid's Tale.

 

[Mountain_Girl406]

I also recommend Parable of the Sower, or anything else by Octavia Butler. Parable of the Sower is a bit scary to read now, though, like The Handmaid's Tale.

 

[Mountain_Girl406]

I also recommend Parable of the Sower, or anything else by Octavia Butler. Parable of the Sower is a bit scary to read now, though, like The Handmaid's Tale.

 

[keith99]

I also recommend Parable of the Sower, or anything else by Octavia Butler. Parable of the Sower is a bit scary to read now, though, like The Handmaid's Tale.

For scary I find Heinlein and to a degree Asimov and Clarke to far outdistance anything written today. Why? Because some of their works sound like they were written 5 or 6 years ago instead of 5 or 6 decades. So much has come to pass, why not the final nasty bits.

Scary to read now is If This Goes On. OK he did miss a bit. Nehemiah Scudder 'was' elected president in 2012. But who would have had concerns about electing a preacher president in 1940? NOW a lot of us have concerns about the wrong kind of "Christian" being elected.

BTW if one with that name gets a big following I'm buying guns and moving to Arizona or New Mexico where I plan to work with closet Catholics and do some spelunking!

 

[keith99]

I also recommend Parable of the Sower, or anything else by Octavia Butler. Parable of the Sower is a bit scary to read now, though, like The Handmaid's Tale.

For scary I find Heinlein and to a degree Asimov and Clarke to far outdistance anything written today. Why? Because some of their works sound like they were written 5 or 6 years ago instead of 5 or 6 decades. So much has come to pass, why not the final nasty bits.

Scary to read now is If This Goes On. OK he did miss a bit. Nehemiah Scudder 'was' elected president in 2012. But who would have had concerns about electing a preacher president in 1940? NOW a lot of us have concerns about the wrong kind of "Christian" being elected.

BTW if one with that name gets a big following I'm buying guns and moving to Arizona or New Mexico where I plan to work with closet Catholics and do some spelunking!

 

[Open Heart]

My three favorite Sci-Fi authors:

1. Isaac Asimov
2. Ursula LeGuin
3. Orson Scott Card

 

[Blackmarch]

I've been on a Man-Kzin Wars stint lately in Niven's Known Universe setting. Pretty good for the most part. i find it interesting how various authors predict how religion will be and how it might affect aliens in some of them.

 

[Teamo]

As the thread has become Christ like (risen from the dead), I figured I'd throw in some other sci-fi.

Accelerando by Charles Stross An interesting look at the near future

I enjoyed Accelerando, I think I need to re-read it

 

[Teamo]

I recommend Neal Stephenson, Allistair Reynolds, and Gene Wolfe.

Stephenson's Baroque Cycle series and Cryptonomicon are not Sci-Fi, but they are great reads also.

My favorite Stephenson book is Anathem, I re-read it recently.

I don't want to give too much away but it involves cloistered monks and aliens

 

[RDKirk]

Avoid anything with very scantily clad women on the cover they are generally cheap pulp stuff.

Not really. The covers were just the covers--like misleading movie trailers--with usually some of the best vintage science fiction within.

 

[keith99]

I've been on a Man-Kzin Wars stint lately in Niven's Known Universe setting. Pretty good for the most part. i find it interesting how various authors predict how religion will be and how it might affect aliens in some of them.

It is Known Space. I'm pretty sure there is a minor Known Space story that is quite interesting. There was a race that spent a lot of effort finding out what happened after death. For them it was Christianity without any chance of salvation. E.g. everyone ended up in a place of eternal torment.

There solution was to create an artificial life form that had no 'soul' so when they died they just died and then set that race to the task of finding a way out. The original race then all went into stasis fields, technically not dead. One story is about finding a memeber of that race.

Sorry I can't find what story that is.