Recommend a Sci-Fi/Fantasy Book

[Nekosan]

battlefield earth? really? I tried to read some of his stuff and was put off by the writing itself, it read like a ten year old's attempt at science fiction and when the leading character is called johnny goodboy....well I needen't go on, just my opinion but I would rather read another of dan brown's books and they were pretty abysmal.

I wouldn't go that far man, I'm a pretty heavy reader and to date (in my entire life) there's only 1 book that i started and didn't finish (The Da Vinchi Code), I've accidentally bought "choose your own adventure" spinoffs in second hand book stores thinking they were the original book and still finished them... but I couldn't finish 2 chapters of that "best seller". Not sure what it is but Dan Browns writing makes me want to claw my eyes out with rusty nails coated in AIDS.

[nudge]

Reading Summoner by Gail Z Martin at the moment. I finding really hard to get into.

Incidently, he said that battlefield earth is by far the best value for money science fiction book in existence. He picked up his copy for under $1 new I believe

[PSone]

The Mercy Thompson Series is brilliant. Get amongst it.

[MaCrumQuo]

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Phillip K. Dick

Blade Runner is loosely based off this book.

[Matthyew82]

Lois mcmaster Bujold has an awesome collection of fantasy and scifi, anything including Miles vorkosigan is brilliant, ive yet to read a book of hers i dislike.

Then of course there is my fav david gemmell, 31 books before he died, truly heroic fantasy, massively recommended

[Nekosan]

Reading Summoner by Gail Z Martin at the moment. I finding really hard to get into.

Incidently, he said that battlefield earth is by far the best value for money science fiction book in existence. He picked up his copy for under $1 new I believe

Pretty good reason for that, scientology is the reason for much of his sales, i can't remember what/where but i remember reading that they purchase x amount of his work every year and just warehouse it.

[Matthyew82]

bit off topic but

I know this is kinda wide and vague question. But im trying to find a webcomic that i read years ago, one of the characters was a vamp who while being young had this special power given to him by some egyptian god?

[Avant]

Definitely Battlefield Earth, loved that book.

LOL, Always avoided that due to him being the Scientology founder. What did you love about it? Just curious.

I second the Iain M Banks recommendation, read one and before I knew it I had finished all his culture books and went online to see if any other authors had written books in the same universe.

It's not that bad really, there's no cultist drivel or anything. It's a very large story and it concludes really well. The characters are really strong and the story progresses very well. Kicks the **** off the movie that came out which covers only a fraction of the book.

The main character is pretty awesome, super hero kinda awesome

[Bato]

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Phillip K. Dick

Blade Runner is loosely based off this book.

I actually have the "movies" antholog of P.K. Dick (most of the works of his that made it to the big screen) and it's surprising he almost finished a destitute when you see how many of his books ended up being successful movies.

[Slipoch]

I wouldn't go that far man, I'm a pretty heavy reader and to date (in my entire life) there's only 1 book that i started and didn't finish (The Da Vinchi Code), I've accidentally bought "choose your own adventure" spinoffs in second hand book stores thinking they were the original book and still finished them... but I couldn't finish 2 chapters of that "best seller". Not sure what it is but Dan Browns writing makes me want to claw my eyes out with rusty nails coated in AIDS.

Yeah funny how dan brown's books were out of print and you couldn't even get em at the airport until that movie started getting made. so much for 'best sellers' maybe if the sample size was one and it was his mum.

I still found L. Ron Hubbard's books a worse read, simply from the grammatical errors and the simplicity of plot and clumsy attempts at subtlety and characterisation, nothing on David Brin, Larry Niven, Asimov, Frederick Pohl, Orsen Scott Card, John Wyndham, Peter F. Hamilton, Harry Harrison, Simon Haynes, Simon Brown.

Regards,
Slipoch

[Yurtles]

The Amtrak Wars, post apocalyptic sci fi/fantasy. brilliant series.

I just "finished" this series and while it was a good read I think it's important to note that Patrick Tilley has not actually finished the story and hasn't added to it for over 20 years now. And some people got annoyed at the delay for Game Of Thrones...

I've also recently read Star Wartz again by Patrick Tilley. Stupid name, not very interesting blurb on the back, suprisingly decent book.

[Nekosan]

The Amtrak Wars, post apocalyptic sci fi/fantasy. brilliant series.

I just "finished" this series and while it was a good read I think it's important to note that Patrick Tilley has not actually finished the story and hasn't added to it for over 20 years now. And some people got annoyed at the delay for Game Of Thrones...

I've also recently read Star Wartz again by Patrick Tilley. Stupid name, not very interesting blurb on the back, suprisingly decent book.

There was a reasonable amount of closure to the books, considering he's 83 and hasn't published in more than 15 years i don't think we'll be seeing any more, he seems to have dropped off the radar.

In any case i think my copies will be dust by the time he publishes again, though they're holding up surprisingly well considering the amount of times they've been read and they always seem to come back from loans in one piece:



In other news, i finally read "Neuromancer" after putting it off for a long long time, I'm a big fan of cyberpunk but i was afraid that being one of those "must reads" it would turn out to be a total techno circlejerk like so many cyberpunk novels do. I was pleasantly surprised, both by the fact that it wasn't and by how well it holds up 27 years after publishing (that's amazing for a tech based novel like that).

I had one of those "OHSHIT!" moments when

Hidden: show

molly started talking about the dead love of her life "his name was Johnny, he was a data a courier", totally made my day.

I'm currently ripping through the rest of the Sprawl trilogy by Gibson, will probs keep me busy for a week depending on how enthralled i get, I'm still a little confused as to why the novel was called "Neuromancer" rather than "WinterMute"... seems like it would have been a much more relevant name (although the mystery about the name would have been ruined much sooner).



For lulz it's worth noting that Amtrak Wars is where the infamous

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"special forces make the trainees raise a puppy and then kill it to graduate" story comes from.

[steve_rogers42]

Oh man, reading neuromancer, count zero, mona lisa overdrive, then virtual light, idoru and finally All tomorrows parties...

All Tomorrow's Parties rocks the socks off all of them, its worth reading them all for ATP, its just... so utterly fantastic.

Still enjoy Gibson's style, his newer stuff is pretty good to.

If you enjoy that stuff, its worth checking out The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi, it too is fantastic, after reading it im trying to hunt down my next read or go back to 'the city and the city' which i put down somewhere...

[Nekosan]

If you enjoy that stuff, its worth checking out The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi, it too is fantastic, after reading it im trying to hunt down my next read or go back to 'the city and the city' which i put down somewhere...

The unfortunate side effect of the Gibson is that in hindsight i'm distinctly less impressed with Neal Stephenson's work than i was (he just can't write a book without having a little nerdgasm at his own stupid creations/names).

My "to read" list currently consists of:

Count Zero(read half of it lastnight) + Mona Lisa Overdrive

The Bridge Trilogy

The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi (funny that you mention that, been on my desk for a few months waiting for me to get into a steampunkish/cyberpunk kind of mood

Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente

Perdido Street Station (i havent touched any Miéville yet for the same reason i was ignoring Neuromancer, figured i might as well start wit this)

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

The Neanderthal Parallax trilogy by Robert J. Sawyer

I've somewhat ignored a few of the big books in the last decade and now I'm just munching through the Hugo nominees for Best novel (pretty much), the problem is that i keep getting distracted by random books and there are a few sequels out atm that I've been waiting for for a bit (latest Kate Elliot for example).

[Lance P King]

Ah man, Neuromancer just never gets old, still as gnarly and electric as the day it was written. I didn't mind Idoru, t'was a little thin for mine but still enjoyable, virtual light I loved.