The real science fiction classics

[Corgatha Taldorthar]

Really? I liked Children of the Mind. I didn't think it was good as the first two, but I thought it was very readable myself. (Xenocide, on the other hand. Blegh.)

And I admit, the Bean stuff had me annoyed a bit. "Here's the guy whose actually SMARTER than the guy whose supposed to be smarter than everyone." Didn't work to well. Still, the most recent one, Ender's Shadow, I liked, a lot.

[Tezkat]

Oh, I didn't say Children of the Mind was unreadable. It merely failed to save the series from the horrible mistake that was Xenocide. Card is a good writer, especially when playing to his strengths, but he really should stop trying to write grander military/political SF. Because he's bad at it.


Since we're including the slightly obscure on this list as well, here's one more contribution:

Dragon's Egg, by Robert L Forward, describes life evolving on the surface of a neutron star. Although not the greatest novel of all time, it's wonderfully imaginative hard SF written by an actual rocket scientist. The book holds a special place in my heart as the very first novel I purchased with my own money ($0.25 at a school book sale ).

[Janus Whitefurr]

- http://baetzler.de/humor/meat_beings.html (and the video)

I have read this multiple times since I found the internet, and no matter how many times I see it I still love it to death. "Ohmigod. Singing meat."

[TheJimTimMan]

"Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you getting the picture?"
"Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the universe would be if one were all alone."

My gods that is insane. And yet, hilariously brilliant.

[techmaster-glitch]

What's all this against Xenocide ? It was a good book to me... (oddly enough, Speaker for the Dead was the one book in the series I didn't read, my school library didn't have it. I read Ender's Game, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind, and I liked them all...)

but he really should stop trying to write grander military/political SF. Because he's bad at it.

...Wasn't that all that Ender's Game was, though?

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Nope.

Enders Game was on par with, well, with Lord of the Flies. It's just a story about a kid in a game.

Everything else is what you read into it. And that is where it shines.

[Corgatha Taldorthar]

Another short story I really like, (blanking on the author's name for the moment) is "I have no mouth and I must scream". It's creepy.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Harlan Ellison.

[Janus Whitefurr]

Another short story I really like, (blanking on the author's name for the moment) is "I have no mouth and I must scream". It's creepy.

Harlan Ellison.

(sniped by the box. *sets him on fire*)

[bill]

Nope.

Enders Game was on par with, well, with Lord of the Flies. It's just a story about a kid in a game.

Everything else is what you read into it. And that is where it shines.

that's a fairly odd way to look at literature, especially since Lord of the Flies was a fairly blunt allegory

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

I'm a fairly odd person. *shrug*

[ShadesFox]

Yea you are boxy.

Anyways, I got a bunch of books today.  Heinlen's Stranger in a Strange Land, Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky, Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep, Asimov's Foundation, and Card's Ender's Game.  I also found a copy of Pratchett's Going Postal in the adjacent fantasy section.  All for about $20.  Not a bad haul going through two used book store.  Though I was most disappointed I could not find Ring World or Dune.  Though I hear there is a huge one not far away, I may have to plan a trip to Knoxville

[thegayhare]

another pair of intersting scifi books to look for are the Jesus incident and the Lazerous effect by author Frank Herbert and poet Bill Ransom

They are intersting novels involving AI

I didn't realises it  but I came in the middle of the series as there is a book before the others called destination void

[Teh_Hobo]

Theres a bunch that hasn't been mentioned that I absolutely love.
C.J. Cherryh is one of my absolute favorite authors. Most of what I've read from her is less technology based, and more based on alien culture and how human culture would clash.
favorites from her are:
Cuckoo's Egg: A lone human raised as an alien, and the results. One of my all time favorites, I really wish she would write a sequel.
The Pride Of Chanur: Space faring lions take in a human that has escaped from some other aliens. Better than it sounds. All the related sequels are excellent as well.
Foreigner: the start of an absolutely MASSIVE series. I had to force myself through the introductory chapter, but thats mainly because I'm not that into technical bits. After the introduction, the actual story is awesome. There's some 9 other books out, with a tenth awaiting publication. Still working my way through them, but I haven't come across a bad one yet.
Another favorite author is Dean Ing, though his books have become rather difficult to find. Most of his books work within a timeframe much nearer our own, so no spaceships or FTL travel. He's an aerospace engineer, and as such he writes alot about flight, and futuristic planes and such.
Favorites from Dean Ing:
the Quantrill trilogy: Systemic Shock, Single Combat, and Wild Country: Nuclear war, assasins, conspiracies, sex, violence, and a massive mutated boar.
The Ransom Of Black Stealth One: Conspiracies and planes!
The Big Lifters: now that i think about it, Dean Ing seems to have quite a thing for conspiracies. And violence.

I know theres more that I'm forgetting. I'll have to go peruse my parents small library of SF.

[LionHeart]

I don't think anyone has mentioned Anne McCaffrey yet...

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

I don't think anyone has mentioned Anne McCaffrey yet...

... And with good reason... ;-]

[Brunhidden]

I don't think anyone has mentioned Anne McCaffrey yet...

... And with good reason... ;-]

i kinda winced when someone mentioned piers anthony

were going for classics here, NYT bestseller does not a classic make

[Tapewolf]

i kinda winced when someone mentioned piers anthony

were going for classics here, NYT bestseller does not a classic make

How about a Hugo nomination?

[Jer-oh-me]

Wow, poked my nose in here to see what you guys are talking about, and feel a little out of my league... I need to read more. And I'm already considered voracious about it! Anyhow, I haven't read any of the Ender series in a while, I have the second Ender's Shadow book, I don't think Card is so much not good at writing "Grander Military/Political SF" as he just happens to have a very American Conservative viewpoint that more than likely is what is being felt and leaving a bitter taste in the mouth. But, I could be wrong.

[rabid_fox]

Anyone into sci-fi fiction should read:

The Gap Series: Stephen Donaldson

I effing hate sci-fi novels (I find them jargoned, pretentious and unimaginative, filled with stock characters being dull) but I'm re-reading The Gap Series now and, oh lawks, it's just fantabulous.

[Corgatha Taldorthar]

Actually, anything that Donaldson writes tends to be quite good, but a lot of his stuff tends towards what's more classically fantasy than sci-fi.

[rabid_fox]

Thomas Covenant is my anti-hero. The Gap Series is pure sci-fi though. And god, the characters and ideas are like immolation.

[bill]

i hated the thomas covenant books, and by extension, you

[rabid_fox]

But you keep coming back for the blowjobs. You slut.

[Janus Whitefurr]

Wow, poked my nose in here to see what you guys are talking about, and feel a little out of my league... I need to read more. And I'm already considered voracious about it!

Literary lovers of the science-fiction variety tend to be both huge readers of the genre (redundancy?) and huge snobs about what they consider classics - for most people, these tend to be the -early- writers. I read a -lot-, missed out on a lot of the classics like Heinlein and Asimov (I had some Bradbury around, I swear), and this thread still makes me shake my head at some of the things being bandied about. Just wait until they start criticising each other's choices in literature!

Also, slightly more recent than all that, Tad Williams' quartet "Otherland"

[bill]

we should start a "real literature" thread and see how snobby it could possibly get

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

I'm pretty sure that that would breach the rules on trolling and personal attacks.

You're welcome to try, of course, but don't blame me if some random mod comes and locks the thread. ;-]

[rabid_fox]

As an English teacher I have no valid opinion whatsoever on literature or anything.

[Jer-oh-me]

we should start a "real literature" thread and see how snobby it could possibly get

This sounds like a supremely BAD idea to me.

[bill]

I've found that any thread about literature on any internet forum degenerates into people yelling about fantasy novels