BF2S Forums Know Any Good Sci-Fi Books?

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

Knightnifer wrote:

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

You slammed the Pratchett and the Seuss. Close FTW.

You only posted it yesterday. Allow some time before calling it the most long-lasting.

Didn't say the most "Long-Lasting" It's just it hasn't been closed Yet. So i have at least accomplished something.
Pratchett Fails
Seuss... Don't get me started.

By your logic, I could call Clancy's stuff flaccid, repetitive gut-busters, but it still doesn't stop ripping on authors in book lists from being lame.

I have never even touched a clancy book...

But you dis Andy McNab and i will disembowl you and your family. Have a nice day

If your serious about this request...their is ONLY one BEST SCIFI book.   Its called "ARMOR".   Check Amazon...

http://www.amazon.com/Armor-John-Steakley/dp/0886773687/sr=1-1/qid=1163533344/ref=sr_1_1/103-0335879-0041442?ie=UTF8&s=books

If you don't think this is the single BEST BOOK on SCIFI WAR, your nuts!  Try it ... you'll love it.

BTW... this was printed long before online gaming and yet it set the trend in outstanding Science Fiction WAR !

Last edited by Skrogg**Viper** (2006-11-14 11:46:25)

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

Skrogg**Viper** wrote:

If your serious about this request...their is ONLY one BEST SCIFI book.   Its called "ARMOR".   Check Amazon...

http://www.amazon.com/Armor-John-Steakl … mp;s=books

If you don't think this is the single BEST BOOK on SCIFI WAR, your nuts!  Try it ... you'll love it.

BTW... this was printed long before online gaming and yet it set the trend in outstanding Science Fiction WAR !

I beg to differ on the underlined. The concept reminds me of its 'battle armor predecessor' 'Starship Troopers.'

I'll check it out. Looks good.

Agreed - Troopers was out in 1960 (apparently as a magazine serial before this), as opposed to mid 80s for Armor. Lot of stuff can be argued as setting the standard/trend/etc - it's all evolution and what is really groundbreaking for it's day.

Having said that - it is pretty damn good. 2 halves to the book are well done, although I prefer the first half battlefield side with Felix,  as opposed to the pirate second half (which is also good as more of an in-your-head intensity).

This is a topic worth chiming in on - I strongly recommend Steel Beach, by John Varley.

Varley's style has generally been Sci Fi based within the plausable relam of Theoretically Viable Physics - no elves, dwarves, or magic to take the easy road to explain an event. Granted there was a 'leap of faith' required to foreshadow this book, but he didn't dwell on it - it simply allowed for the foundation of the entire story.

The title Steel Beach is a metephor describing Man's need and abilitiy to evolve - Taking the imagry of the Lung Fish as it began to leave the ocean, develop the ability to breath air and walk over the course of thousands of years - His book places mankind at the cusp of a similar evolutionary stage, but a beach of Steel & Concrete as opposed to rock and shell.

I've read all of Varley's book - the whimsical Wizard Series (he has a thing for writing about lesbians - go figger) to the less than great Blue Thunder.. or was it Red thunder?... dunno.. didn't like it.

Start with Steel Beach, you won't regret it if you like Science Fiction that's theoretically plausable and well written.

After that, his last book Mammoth was also quite good.

DeadJim

Last edited by DeadJim (2006-11-14 15:05:11)

Bertster7 wrote:

IG-Calibre wrote:

Frank Herberts Dune series

Nice. The first one's the best (I haven't read all of them though).

Check out 'The Road to Dune.' Has some companion material.

I read the Halo Trilogy, it was pretty good.

The Lensman series, by E.E. 'Doc' Smith...
#1 Triplanetary
#2 First Lensman
#3 Galactic Patrol
#4 Gray Lensman
#5 Second Stage Lensman
#6 Children of the Lens

1 and 2 were alright, but the last 4 are great

PspRpg-7 wrote:

I read the Halo Trilogy, it was pretty good.

No.

chittydog wrote:

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

William Shatner ...yes, I know...

'The Return' ...in this, Kirk is brought into the future yet again, but Shatner does a good job of it.
'Quest for Tomorrow' series (starting with Delta Search)
'Man O' War' ...there's a sequel called Law of War that I'll have to check out

newb's right: The Quest for Tomorrow series is excellent. Man O' War and Law of War were both fantastic. I figured anything by Shatner would be cheesy, but they're actually damn good books.

My favorite sci-fi author is definitely C.S. Friedman. http://www.csfriedman.com/novels.htm
The Madness Season kicked ass.

Lethe by Tricia Sullivan is great too.

If you like that, you should try Foster's 'Damned' trilogy.

Ratzinger wrote:

Looking at my shelves of sci-fi, I'd have to say more than half of the 100-odd titles are derivative rubbish, especially most of that after 1970. Get the originals in first, and you'll have more insight into the current stuff...

Oh, I just HAVE to say it, The "Dune" series were very near the worst novels I have ever read, and I get through about 3 a week for the last 30 years....

Well, at least you didn't like them. Someone had to not have. Dune hate = fail.

Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2006-11-16 23:05:08)

Bubbalo wrote:

Ratzinger wrote:

Oh, I just HAVE to say it, The "Dune" series were very near the worst novels I have ever read, and I get through about 3 a week for the last 30 years....

The first on was brilliant, the next two were great, I've heard it goes downhill fast from there but have yet to read them.  But the first three were good.

I've read the three new ones, prequels to the original, The Butlerian Jihad, The Machine Crusade and The Battle of Corrin, done by Frank Herbert's son and Kevin J. Anderson. They're quite interesting as they run alot of parallels between the religion in the Dune universe and that of the post 9/11 middle east, the nature of religion, holy wars and how they can be twisted. There's also big stompy robot fighting which is always good.

RocketChild wrote:

Might check out Ender's Game. 

http://www.amazon.com/Enders-Game-Ender … 0812550706

Definately worth the time to read.