Out of Pod Experience

For the last few years I've been reading a lot more, mostly science fiction but a few other genres here and there. I guess the tl;dr is that I need some suggestions, anything is welcome but if you have anything that is remotely like those that will follow and I like it, I might send a few iskies your way.


So far I've gone through:
Most of the Ringworld/Known Space series (Larry Niven) (still working through his stuff)
The Light of Other Days (Arthur C. Clarke & Stephen Baxter)
The Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire series, done and dusted (George R.R. Martin) (I'll be getting around to the novellas at some point too)
The Hunger Games series (Suzanne Collins)
Dexter series (Jeff Lindsay)
Brave new World (Aldous Huxley)
Island (Aldous Huxley)
The Doors of Perception (Aldous Huxley) (That sounds like a fun job)
Chariots of the Gods, Signs of the Gods and Eyes of the Sphinx by Erich Von Daniken, because why not?
A Brief History of Time (Stephen Hawking)


Last but not least and my favourite so far, Last and First Men (Olaf Stapledon) which is so amazing you have to go read it right now.

I've heard a lot about Rendezvous with Rama so that's already on my list, as is much of the work by Mr Clarke.
I agree it's not much of a library but you have to start somewhere. So, what do you have for me?

It seems you like distopian novels as do I. Here are a few good ones:

1984, Orwell (animal farm is great too, and you can finish it in a few hours)
Neuromancer, Gibson
Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury
Anthem, Rand


Some more political/philosophical reads you might enjoy.
Starship troopers, Heinlein (absolutely nothing like the movie)
Atlas Shrugged, Rand
Fountainhead, Rand

Get through these last two and you wont be the same person you were before you read them.

Lol two reasons actually. The dark tower series is a bit more...typical for King and is more something you read if you really like his style of writing. At least thats my own opinion on them.
Second in a way i did since the follow up to The Talisman (Black House) actually ties into the Dark Tower Series.

"Connection to The Dark Tower

When first released, King and Straub did not intend a connection between The Talisman and Stephen King's The Dark Tower series. However, the book's sequel Black House presents a soft-retcon that the Territories are a parallel to All-World. This is most clear by King's introduction to The Little Sisters of Eluria where he states the pavilion where Jack Sawyer meets Sophie is the same one in The Little Sisters.[3]'

But both The Talisman and The long walk are books that can be enjoyed by people who dont like the "classic" idea of King (Scary clowns and movies that always gets the ending ruined by a "monster"), thus its a better choise to start off with if you have already decided to hate the author based on bad movies and "Oh no you cant like King! Everyone else does so ofc he is a bad writer!"

Why is Philip Jose Framer never mentioned in these threads? He is my favorite SF author, 1950's SF is still the best.

The Green Odyssey and The Stone God Awakens are both excellent books.

Also, anything written by Frederic Brown- many of his stories are so weird that they meet somewhere in the middle ground between SF and satire, but Brown is maybe the most important writer of this genre.

The second one is also Stephen King but its not the classic.."Big scary monster! Run for your lives!". Its more..physological (i really hope im using the right word here). The story is pretty simple, but its written in a way that made me really feel..mm..emotions? with the characters and it was really one of those where you just want to keep reading.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Walk


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this.... read it when came out brilliant book the stand and the dark tower series are also good

Yay ! Someone else likes it. My favorite novel OF ALL TIME. Read it 9 times so far. EDIT: (You left out the author's name here: Neal Stephenson, author of "Snow Crash").

But it is NOTHING like Dune at all. ( )

It's more of an assemblage of the entirety of Western Philosophical Thought from Plato to Wittgenstein and beyond !

Don't forget to read the 14 page Acknowledgements on the Web.

If you enjoyed "Brief History of Time" by Hawking you`ll really like "The God Particle. If the universe is the answer, what is the question?" by L.Lederman (who received the nobel prize for elemental particles research) and D. Teresi.

It`s a scientific approach to the evolution of the universe, its future, quantum physics and who we really are, laid out in simple terms mixed with peculiar, scientific humor.

Just remembered:

Gene Wolfe's original "Book of the New Sun" quadrilogy.

"The Shadow of the Torturer"
"The Claw of the Conciliator"
"The Sword of the Lictor"
"The Citadel of the Autarch"

and the coda: "The Urth of the New Sun"

Utterly blurs the line between fantasy and science fiction. And some of the best writing of the 20th Century.

Fascinating, but so complex after 7 readings I'm still not sure what exactly is going on in some of the passages. Neither are a lot of people. Appeals because it's never completely resolved in the mind.

As per usual for this kind of thread I'm gonna push Dan Simmons' Hyperion- (4 books) and Ilium- (2 books) series.

You also might want to look into the various Culture-books by Iain M. Banks.

Since you like Larry Niven, I'd recommend his collaborations with Jerry Pournelle, especially "The Mote In God's Eye."