Sci-Fi

[Rakala]

I have recently gotten the ultimate Sci-Fi gift. The 5th and final season of Babylon 5! I own and have watched from season four up and now I can finally finish it! Just in time since I'm stuck at the hospital for a while!
Anyways, it got me to wondering, what are other peoples preference for sci fi?

[Lisky]

i enjoyed babylon 5, and apparently people are making a mod of B5 as an RTS for the game sins of a solar empire...

another series that i enjoyed was Farscape, but thats one that seems to either be a love or hate kinda thing... besides that, firefly was a rather awesome series, but that was more of a space western than true sci-fi, at least thats how i saw it

[Teh_Hobo]

YESS SCI FI
Though my sci fi tastes run a bit more towards books than tv/movies. Never really watched any sci fi tv shows aside from star trek tng when i was younger. Movies, I enjoyed every single Star Wars. Yes, even the prequels that everyone else seems to hate. Most other sci fi stuff that I've seen was pretty good, but I'm not a big movie watcher. Books, though, I could go on and on about my favorite sci fi authors and series' for probably DAYS. For simplicity, just about everything by CJ Cherryh, Dean Ing, and Orson Scott Card when he doesnt get too psychological.

[Corgatha Taldorthar]

I'm also more of a reader than a watcher, although I like both Star Trek and Star Wars. Never seen Babylon 5, although I've been told repeatedly it's brilliant.


As for books, Card is pretty good, yes, but you didn't mention the giants. Heinlin! Asimov! Even Dan Simmons, although he only really wrote one series, the Hyperion/Endymion thing is great.

And if you want the ultimate literary one hit wonder, there's Dune. Lovely lovely Dune...... *gazes into the sand*

[Lisky]

if we want to include books, David Drake is an author that i really enjoy, though he's got a focus on military Sci-fi, then there's the classics, like Ender's Game, Dune, and so on.

A few authors not very many people have heard of are Willaim Dietz, and John Scalzi.  Dietz did a rather well done story about the earth being invaded by aliens, the 2 books are called Death day, and Earth Rise...

Scalzi did a book i really enjoyed called The Old Mans War, and the follow up The Ghost Brigade...

[Corgatha Taldorthar]

I know I already spoke, but I want to get up again.

The thing I really, really liked about Asimov is that for all of his sci-fi, he kept to a good story. Fundamentally, all (or almost all) of his works were about people. The exotic technology, possible alien species, whatnot, were all there, but they didn't take over the books. The Robot series, for example, are murder mysteries. (or one roboticide mystery). Nightfall, even more than about the odd world of Lagash, is about the fear of confronting the unknown. Foundation is unbelievably intertwined with the opposing themes of mass action and individual free choice.

And right now, I'm remembering "The Last Question"  a very  short story that he wrote, where there isn't even a major character, or a setting. It's 6 settings, where in each instance someone asks a supercomputer whether entropy can be reversed. Each time, they get a cold answer of "There is insufficient data to answer the question at this time". At the end, the universe has suffered heat death, and but the computer keeps going, trying to solve that one question. The ending kicked me in the gut. If you like Sci-fi, go out and get one of the Asimov short story compiliations. You won't be sorry.

Edit. I found link. Hooray is me!Great Story.

[Teh_Hobo]

I'm also more of a reader than a watcher, although I like both Star Trek and Star Wars. Never seen Babylon 5, although I've been told repeatedly it's brilliant.


As for books, Card is pretty good, yes, but you didn't mention the giants. Heinlin! Asimov! Even Dan Simmons, although he only really wrote one series, the Hyperion/Endymion thing is great.

And if you want the ultimate literary one hit wonder, there's Dune. Lovely lovely Dune...... *gazes into the sand*

I did say I was keeping it simple. Though I have some experience with those authors, I havent really read enough to justify saying they're favorites of mine, whereas I've read almost all of CJ Cherryhs books. As for Dune, I tried to read it once when i was younger, got about halfway through, and couldnt stay interested. Then again the same thing happened with Cherryhs Foreigner series, which after i forced myself to read the first one all the way through is now probably one of my favorite series'. Once I'm done with the fantasy kick I'm on I'll have to try to reread Dune.
My dad LOVES David Drake, and John Ringo, and David Weber and aaaall that military sci fi that I just cant seem to get interested in.

[Pagan]

I've dabbled a bit in sci-fi, but I am more of a fantasy fan. However, the books that I have read in sci-fi, I've loved. Star Wars really ought to be a given, but I'll mention it as well. I also have a strong fondness of Warhammer 40,000.
In short: I'm not very experienced in the genre, but I like what I've seen.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

... No mention of the other of the Big Three?

Arthur C Clarke. Robert Anson Heinlein. Isaac Asimov.

Then you go on to the others - E E 'Doc' Smith, and contemporaries, for old school pulp fiction. Move on to some of the others mentioned - David Drake, David Weber, David Eddings, (notice a theme?), Anne McCaffrey, John Ringo, and all the others.

And that's without breaking into my library and looking. Let's see... Oh, yes. Alan Dean Foster, L E Modesitt, Iain M Banks, Chris Claremont, David Gemmell, David Gerrold, Eric Flint, Eric Frank Russell, Douglas Adams, Neil Gaiman, Robert A MacAvoy, Robert Asprin, Roger Zelazny, Tom Holt, Mercedes Lackey, Naomi Novik, Neal Stephenson, Lois McMaster Bujold, Jerry Pournelle...

Lots of good writers out there. Heaps of good stuff.

[Lisky]

i totally forgot about the series i just got into recently, try the Berserker series by Fred Saberhagen... it's a series of short stories, most of them are pretty well done, though the range of stories in the series varies to the point that some of them don't really feel related, and the only real common theme is humanity against artificial intelligence... well worth a look if you like the space opera stuff, like star wars

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

mmm. Saberhagen has some interesting stories - Brother Berserker was an interesting idea about the reality of humanity...

[Tapewolf]

mmm. Saberhagen has some interesting stories - Brother Berserker was an interesting idea about the reality of humanity...

It's been too long since I read those.  No-one seems to have mentioned Larry Niven, though.

As for Eric Frank Russell, try to get "Wasp" if you can.  I think it's still in print, despite the hero being a terrorist.

[Kipiru]

And let's not forget David Brin and his Uplift universe- that's where I got my nickname from -Kipiru the dolphin pilot from Startide rising. And what about Timothy Zahn and his Conquerors Trilogy(he later wrote a handfull of Star Wars books) - you've got to love stories where humans are presented as superior badasses! In that thought you must know of the game Advent Rising(story for it was written by Orson Scott Card)- the gameplay was lacking on many levels but the story and atmosphere ruled. As far as TV series go- Star trek wears the crown, but frankly any starship based series has proven to be to my liking- Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, Babylon 5, Farscape(though with mixed feelings), Lexx(even more mixed feelings) and as of late Andromeda( the idea of an almighty battle cruiser struck a note in me).   

[Rakala]

There's also Doctor Who, and Starcraft seems to have taken on an entire life beyond the video games.

[Janus Whitefurr]

Lexx(even more mixed feelings)

Most people who claim to have mixed feelings about Lexx tend to grouse that they got comedy and innuendo in your science fiction. Of course, I own all four seasons, and the only comedy seep tends to really happen in season four when they use Earth as a laughing ground. Except for certain episodes and the ending, heh. The rest of the series is lovely done.

As for books, I'll hold up my country of origin and put out Isobelle Carmody (Obernewtyn Chronicles) and Joel Shepherd (Cassandra Kresnov trilogy) for reading perusal. Aussie aussue aussie.

[Azlan]

Nice to see someone mentioned Larry, nice chap he is.  There is also Vernor Vinge, Anne McCaffrey, David Brin... the list is quite numerous, more then one can ever wish for, yet not nearly enough.

[TheGreyRonin]

Also classics like Hal Clement and Clifford D. Simak, and newer authors like Spider Robinson and John Varley (the latter's Red Thunder and sequel are really better than I expected.)

I'd like to set my library against Llearch's some day, though I suspect his would eat mine alive in the fiction section. Either way, it'd be fun to watch, from a very long distance, with remote sensors, possibly from orbit...

[Tapewolf]

There is also Vernor Vinge, Anne McCaffrey, David Brin...

Dunno how I forgot Vernor Vinge.  My favourites there are "Fire Upon The Deep" and "True Names".

Also a few more:  Daniel F. Galouye (The Last Leap), A. E. Van Vogt, and C. M. Kornbluth.
Some of Kornbluth's classics include 'The Cosmic Charge Account', 'Mr. Packer Goes To Hell' and 'The Marching Morons' which was ripped off as the film "Idiocracy".

Oh, and no-one has mentioned Peter F. Hamilton.  His 'Night's Dawn' trilogy has an interesting look at souls within an atheistic context.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

I'd like to set my library against Llearch's some day, though I suspect his would eat mine alive in the fiction section. Either way, it'd be fun to watch, from a very long distance, with remote sensors, possibly from orbit...

Heh. Much of my library is either in boxes in another country, or ebooks. I keep meaning to put up some bookshelves, but other things interfere...

[LionHeart]

I think most of my personal library is science fiction or fantasy related. I'm pretty sure that I've read books or stories by most of the authors mentioned so far.

For those who like military SF, I can recommend David Weber's "Honor Harrington" series.

Also, I don't think anyone's mention Simon Hawke yet. The "Time Wars" series is very good.

[Lysander]

I like most Star Trek episodes from that I've seen from more than one series. For books I really enjoyed the three books from the Ender's Game series that I've read. Anne McCaffrey is a great author for both Sci-Fi and Fantasy.   

[Tipod]

Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson is probably the only sci-fi book I've really enjoyed, partly for the fact that he was able to peg exactly what a major metaverse-type game/program would be like (IE, people having avatars that look like giant penises, dragons, and other insanity).

[Tapewolf]

Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson is probably the only sci-fi book I've really enjoyed, partly for the fact that he was able to peg exactly what a major metaverse-type game/program would be like (IE, people having avatars that look like giant penises, dragons, and other insanity).

In that case, you definitely want to read 'True Names' by Vernor Vinge. 

[Janus Whitefurr]

Strangely, this occurs to me -right- after waking up, I'm shocked that no one has thought to mention the grand-daddy of cyberpunk, William Gibson and Neuromancer.

[Tapewolf]

Strangely, this occurs to me -right- after waking up, I'm shocked that no one has thought to mention the grand-daddy of cyberpunk, William Gibson and Neuromancer.

Actually Vinge beat it to the punch by about 3 years (1981), but yes, that's a shocking omission.

[ShadesFox]

I tried listening to the Neuromancer book on tape read by William Gibson.  The guy has the worst voice for reading books.  It was painful

[Teh_Hobo]

Strangely, this occurs to me -right- after waking up, I'm shocked that no one has thought to mention the grand-daddy of cyberpunk, William Gibson and Neuromancer.

Actually Vinge beat it to the punch by about 3 years (1981), but yes, that's a shocking omission.

Thomas J. Ryan beat them both to it in 1977. But I'm getting a bit obscure here.

[ShadesFox]

Speaking of science fiction, Heinlein's house is for sale...
Link of doom!

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Nuts. Not only am I in the wrong country entirely, it's way out of my price range.


Looks like a lovely place, though.