Out of Pod Experience

My Top SF reading starts and stops with that series.

I can imagine, one day, running into Angus in a run down bar somewhere in Lo Sec.


I've been reading SF for decades and nothing comes close. But some also-rans:


The Founation Trilogy - Asimov. Just read the three books and none of the later works. A classic.
Rendezvous With Rama - Clake Just read the orginal.

Most of middle Heinlein stuff - not the kiddie fiction and not the later works when he seems to write soft porm for the hell of it.

The Flight of the Dragonfly. Forgotten who wrote it but's it's great hard SF.

Here you go: http://www.box.net/shared/static/a6omcl2la0ivlxsn3o8m.jpg

My #1 sci-fi series must be:
The Golden Age trilogy by John C. Wright

Another good trilogy (I love trilogies!) is:
Rifters trilogy by Peter Watts
Author's blog is worth checking out. You can stumble upon such treasures such as The Coming of the Lord.

Somebody mentioned Hyperion. This is by the same author and quite enjoyable read:
Ilium/Olympos by Dan Simmons

Great stuff - Thanks everyone. Please keep the recommendations coming as I find these threads an invaluable resource.

Two more suggestions from me:

Altered Carbon, and, Broken Angels both by Richard Morgan.

Hopefully this question doesn't get me stoned, but I have to ask:

Why on Earth do so many people like Orson Scott Card?

I read half of the books in the Ender's Game series, including ones involving Bean. I read the entire Homecoming Saga. You can't say I didn't give him a chance.

From a geeky-sciencey perspective, the general premise of the Homecoming saga was interesting to me, and he does have some interesting ideas here and there in his books, but Card doesn't flesh out any of these ideas. He lays down a brief snippet of how his hive mind bugs or his world controlling computers work, and then spends 95% of his time describing his character interactions.

Which brings me to his characters. They're appallingly two-dimensional. They're bland. Each character fits into a stereotype and doesn't ever stray from that stereotype. The main characters are the worst of all. When you read a person's book, you can get a fairly good idea of what kind of a person the author is based on the behavior of his main characters. Judging by his books, I'm lead to believe that Card is a social outcast, and suffers from a deep longing for an opportunity to rise above his peers and show them how amazing he thinks he is. His main characters are moral superheroes, and every interaction involves the main character showing other people how they should behave.

I wouldn't mind Card spending 95% of his time with character interactions if his characters were actually interesting, but they just aren't. His books hardly develop his science-fiction ideas and they don't contain interesting characters, so what exactly is the appeal of this author?

This all makes me sound terribly negative, so I just want to mention that there are lots of science fiction authors that I thoroughly enjoy and would readily recommend to anybody. Asimov, Vonnegut, Bradbury, and Niven are all amazing. It's just Card's popularity that perplexes me.

After reading Alastair Reynold's Revelation Space some years ago, I had to get all of his books - just recently bought and read his Terminal City novel which was quite different than his other space novels. Also I liked very much Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep and its sequel A Deepness in the Sky.

My other favorites are Iain M. Banks culture books, Asimov's Robot, Imperium and Foundation novels, Greg Bear's The Way -trilogy and Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat -series.

The newest book that I got was The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi (his first novel) and it was just mind-boggling novel to read.

Thanks for everyone for recommendations - got to see if I can find some of those novels from bookstores...

The Daemon by Daniel Suarez,
got me really kicked.

Also it's some 4 years old, but todays Siri is there... augmented reality is there... also he ******* guessed the gold price at $1900+ so it really got mind blown a bit.
highly recommend both books. (there are well recorded audiobooks too, with robot female voice... :) )

Some really good books have already been mentioned, but I shall throw a few more in.

Anything written by John Barnes. Seriously.
Integral Trees and Smoke Ring by Larry Niven
Legacy of Hereot by Niven and Steve Barnes.

Hell, anything by Niven and Pournelle, since the two Mote books were mentioned, let me toss out Footfall and Lucifer's Hammer.

For cyberpunk, I am partial to Hardwired and Voice of the Whirlwind by Walter Jon Williams. Emerald Eyes, The Long Run and The Last Dancer by Daniel Keys Moran. yes of course, Gibson, Gibson and even more Gibson.

Did I mention ANYTHING written by Johns Barnes? Oh, I did, moving on.

Neil Gaiman - American Gods
Robert Forward - Camelot 30K


I would have a bunch more, but unfortunately the people to to I temporarily entrusted my collection of books did a runner.

Oh oh oh, Gordon Dickson. Wolf and Iron is one of my favorites, but his Child Cycle books (HAI DORSAI) are great.

My favorite is probably the Honor Harrington saga, by David Weber. It's hard-tech space opera, and can be read online for free here.

Both the author and editor are so pissed at the repressive anti-piracy crap advocated by other editors that they put their work online and count on buzz to boost their sales. And it works.

May I ask why you prefer the digital book instead of a real one?