Help us select the next book that the Mobile Read book club will read for November 2010.
The nominations will run through Oct 27 or until 10 books have made the list.
Voting (new poll thread) will run for 5 days starting Oct 27.
Book selection category for November per the "official" club opening thread is:
November 2010
Science Fiction (rivets/science)
In order for a book to be included in the poll it needs THREE NOMINATIONS (original nomination, a second and a third).
How Does This Work?
The Mobile Read Book Club (MRBC) is an informal club that requires nothing of you. Each month a book is selected by polling. On the last week of that month a discussion thread is started for the book. If you want to participate feel free. There is no need to "join" or sign up. All are welcome.
How Does a Book Get Selected?
Each book that is nominated will be listed in a pool at the end of the nomination period. The book that polls the most votes will be the official selection.
How Many Nominations Can I Make?
Each participant has 3 nominations. You can nominate a new book for consideration or nominate (second, third) one that has already been nominated by another person.
How Do I Nominate a Book?
Please just post a message with your nomination. If you are the FIRST to nominate a book, please try to provide an abstract to the book so others may consider their level of interest.
How Do I Know What Has Been Nominated?
Just follow the thread. This message will be updated with the status of the nominations as often as I can. If one is missed, please just post a message with a multi-quote of the 3 nominations and it will be added to the list ASAP.
When is the Poll?
The poll thread will open at the end of the nomination period, or once there have been 10 books with 3 nominations each. At that time a link to the poll thread will be posted here and this thread will be closed.
The floor is open to nominations.
See post #3 for an ongoing compilation of nominations.
We have 10 fully nominated books! Nominations are closed.
Official choices each with three nominations:
1.Old Man's War by John Scalzi - [jabberwock_11, Moe The Cat, gca3020] Inkmesh search
2.The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi - [jgaiser, kennyc, AnemicOak] Inkmesh search
Spoiler:
Quote:
From Wikipedia:
The Windup Girl is set in the 23rd century: Global Warming has raised the levels of world's oceans, carbon fuel sources have become depleted, and manually wound springs are used as energy storage devices. Biotechnology is dominant and mega corporations like AgriGen, PurCal and RedStar (called calorie companies) control food production through 'genehacked' seeds, and use bioterrorism, private armies and economic hitmen to create markets for their products. Frequent catastrophes, such as deadly and widespread plagues and illness, caused by genetically modified crops and mutant pests, ravage entire populations. The natural genetic seed stock of the world's plants has been almost completely supplanted by those that are genetically engineered to be sterile.
3.The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy By Douglas Adams - [obs20, lila55, ficbot, Quake1028] Inkmesh search
Spoiler:
Quote:
Description: "IRRESISTIBLE!" --The Boston Globe Seconds before the Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out-of-work actor. Together this dynamic pair begin a journey through space aided by … more »quotes from The Hitchhiker's Guide ("A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have") and a galaxy-full of fellow travelers: Zaphod Beeblebrox--the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch president of the galaxy; Trillian, Zaphod's girlfriend (formally Tricia McMillan), whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone; Marvin, a paranoid, brilliant, and chronically depressed robot; Veet Voojagig, a former graduate student who is obsessed with the disappearance of all the ballpoint pens he bought over the years. Where are these pens? Why are we born? Why do we die? Why do we spend so much time between wearing digital watches? For all the answers stick your thumb to the stars. And don't forget to bring a towel! "[A] WHIMSICAL ODYSSEY...Characters frolic through the galaxy with infectious joy." --Publishers Weekly From the Paperback edition. (from eBooks.com)
4.City At World's End by Edmond Hamilton - [crich70, twobits, ficbot]
Description: TRUE SENSE OF WONDER SF - "AN IMPRESSIVE ACCOMPLISHMENT." The City at World's End finds the pleasant little American city of Middletown victim to the first punch of an atomic war, a super-hydrogen bomb which explodes thousand yards above the city. Instead of blowing Middletown to smithereens, the blast blows it right off the map - to somewhere else. First there is the new thin coldness … more »of the air, the blazing corona and dullness of the sun, the visibility of the stars in high daylight. Then comes the inhabitant's terrifying discovery that Middletown is a twentieth-century oasis of paved streets and houses and shops and trees and gardens, in a desolate brown world without trees, without water, apparently without life, in unimaginably far-distant future Earth which lies abandoned and dying. To survive, the citizens of Middletown realize they will have to abandon their city, migrate to the alien city beyond the hills, and try to master the secrets of its long-abandoned, incredibly advanced machinery. But, the people of old Earth face their greatest crisis when they receive a communication from their own descendants, who have formed a Galactic Empire among the stars and long since evacuated Earth as uninhabitable or humans and have passed laws that it is to be preserved as a museum world and never repopulated again. If they are live in this future world, the men and women of Middletown will have to agree to leave Earth and migrate among the stars. The City at World's End is a human story of the reactions of men and women and boys and girl, people like you, suddenly thrust into an unprecedented situation. In its suspense, its intense humanity, its unexpected denouement, it is perhaps Mr. Edmond Hamilton's finest novel. We are sure you will agree. "A most impressive example of understatement ... in science fiction. The author has made a largely successful effort to keep the major components of his story within the bounds of the human. Quite an accomplishment in view of the cosmic nature of the plot. Five stars." Galaxy Magazine . (from Amazon.com)
5.Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke - [seagull, ctol, brecklundin]
I can only find the one large print format for this. Anyone else find something? - Inkmesh search
Spoiler:
Quote:
Suddenly space ships appear above all the Earth’s great cities. Soon the aliens announce a new regime enforcing peace and bringing prosperity to the planet. But some suspect ulterior motives particularly since humanity is no longer free to pursue space travel and the aliens never appear publicly. Years later they do appear but bring a message of the destruction of mankind as we know it and the transformation of human children into superior beings.
6.A Fire Upon The Deep by Vernor Vinge [brecklundin, kennyc, voodoo_pepperweb]
From Amazon:
In this Hugo-winning 1991 SF novel, Vernor Vinge gives us a wild new cosmology, a galaxy-spanning "Net of a Million Lies," some finely imagined aliens, and much nail-biting suspense.
Faster-than-light travel remains impossible near Earth, deep in the galaxy's Slow Zone--but physical laws relax in the surrounding Beyond. Outside that again is the Transcend, full of unguessable, godlike "Powers." When human meddling wakes an old Power, the Blight, this spreads like a wildfire mind virus that turns whole civilizations into its unthinking tools. And the half-mythical Countermeasure, if it exists, is lost with two human children on primitive Tines World.
Serious complications follow. One paranoid alien alliance blames humanity for the Blight and launches a genocidal strike. Pham Nuwen, the man who knows about Countermeasure, escapes this ruin in the spacecraft Out of Band--heading for more violence and treachery, with 500 warships soon in hot pursuit. On his destination world, the fascinating Tines are intelligent only in combination: named "individuals" are small packs of the doglike aliens. Primitive doesn't mean stupid, and opposed Tine leaders wheedle the young castaways for information about guns and radios. Low-tech war looms, with elaborately nested betrayals and schemes to seize Out of Band if it ever arrives. The tension becomes extreme... while half the Beyond debates the issues on galactic Usenet.
7.The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell - [ficbot, Latinandgreek, voodoo_pepperweb] Inkmesh search
Spoiler:
Quote:
From Amazon: In 2019, humanity finally finds proof of extraterrestrial life when a listening post in Puerto Rico picks up exquisite singing from a planet which will come to be known as Rakhat. While United Nations diplomats endlessly debate a possible first contact mission, the Society of Jesus quietly organizes an eight-person scientific expedition of its own. What the Jesuits find is a world so beyond comprehension that it will lead them to question the meaning of being "human." When the lone survivor of the expedition, Emilio Sandoz, returns to Earth in 2059, he will try to explain what went wrong...
8.The Man in the High Castle by Philp K. Dick - [John F, jgaiser, kennyc] Inkmesh search
9.A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr. - [seagull, jgaiser, lila55]
Inkmesh search - only large print at one site. Anyone else other links?
Spoiler:
Quote:
This is a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel first published in 1960 that has never been out of print and gone through 25 reprints. It is considered one of the classics of science fiction. Appealing to mainstream and genre critics and readers alike, it won the 1961 Hugo Award for best science fiction novel.
The story starts in a Roman Catholic monastery in the desert of the Southwestern United States after a devastating nuclear war, then spans thousands of years as civilization rebuilds itself. The monks of the Albertian Order of Leibowitz take up the mission of preserving the surviving remnants of man's scientific knowledge until the day the outside world is again ready for it. Eventually, the organization seeks refuge and a mission in the stars. It's themes of religion, recurrence, and church versus state have generated a significant body of scholarly research
10.Time's Eye by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter [JSWolf, WT Sharpe, Moe The Cat] Inkmesh search
Spoiler:
Quote:
1885, the North West Frontier. Rudyard Kipling is witness to a British army action to repress a local uprising. And to a terrifying intervention by a squadron of tanks from 2137. Before the full impact of this extraordinary event has even begun to sink in Kipling, his friends and the tanks are, themselves flung back to the 4th century and the midst of Alexander the Great's army. Mankind's time odyssey has begun. It is a journey that will see Alexander avoid his premature death and carve out an Empire that expands from Carthage to China. And it will present mankind with two devastating truths. Aliens are amongst us and have been manipulating our past and our future. And that future extends only as far as 2137 for that is the date Earth will be destroyed. This is SF that spans countless centuries and carries cutting edge ideas on time travel and alien intervention. It shows two of the genre's masters at their groundbreaking best.
colinsky
10-22-2010 02:30 AM
No nominations yet?
I've had this book sitting on my ebook reader for a while and have been looking for a good excuse to read it.
When Dr Philip Raven, an intellectual working for the League of Nations, dies in 1930 he leaves behind a powerful legacy - an unpublished 'dream book'. Inspired by visions he has experienced for many years, it appears to be a book written far into the future: a history of humanity from the date of his death up to 2105. The Shape of Things to Come provides this 'history of the future', an account that was in some ways remarkably prescient - predicting climatic disaster and sweeping cultural changes, including a Second World War, the rise of chemical warfare, and political instabilities in the Middle East.
dreams
10-22-2010 02:45 AM
Nominations are now closed. Thank you.
OK, my eyes are crossing. Please let me know if there are any errors, or it stands as it is.
Please check for an ebook's price and availability to you.
I'm jumping back and forth on working on this, so give me a bit to do links and complete this. :)
Spoilers contain links and descriptions for nominations
[2] The Shape of Things to Come by H.G. Wells -[colinsky, thinkpadx]
The Shape of Things to Come is a work of science fiction by H. G. Wells, published in 1933, which speculates on future events from 1933 until the year 2106. The book is dominated by Wells' belief in a world state as the solution to mankind's problems.
:)[3] Old Man's War by John Scalzi - [jabberwock_11, Moe The Cat, gca3020]
Description from Amazon: When a Victorian scientist propels himself into the year 802,701 AD, he is initially delighted to find that suffering has been replaced by beauty, contentment and peace. Entranced at first by the Eloi, an elfin species descended from man, he soon realises that this beautiful people are simply remnants of a once-great culture – now weak and childishly afraid of the dark. They have every reason to be afraid: in deep tunnels beneath their paradise lurks another race descended from humanity – the sinister Morlocks. And when the scientist’s time machine vanishes, it becomes clear he must search these tunnels, if he is ever to return to his own era.
:)[3] City At World's End by Edmond Hamilton - [crich70, twobits, ficbot]
Description: TRUE SENSE OF WONDER SF - "AN IMPRESSIVE ACCOMPLISHMENT." The City at World's End finds the pleasant little American city of Middletown victim to the first punch of an atomic war, a super-hydrogen bomb which explodes thousand yards above the city. Instead of blowing Middletown to smithereens, the blast blows it right off the map - to somewhere else. First there is the new thin coldness … more »of the air, the blazing corona and dullness of the sun, the visibility of the stars in high daylight. Then comes the inhabitant's terrifying discovery that Middletown is a twentieth-century oasis of paved streets and houses and shops and trees and gardens, in a desolate brown world without trees, without water, apparently without life, in unimaginably far-distant future Earth which lies abandoned and dying. To survive, the citizens of Middletown realize they will have to abandon their city, migrate to the alien city beyond the hills, and try to master the secrets of its long-abandoned, incredibly advanced machinery. But, the people of old Earth face their greatest crisis when they receive a communication from their own descendants, who have formed a Galactic Empire among the stars and long since evacuated Earth as uninhabitable or humans and have passed laws that it is to be preserved as a museum world and never repopulated again. If they are live in this future world, the men and women of Middletown will have to agree to leave Earth and migrate among the stars. The City at World's End is a human story of the reactions of men and women and boys and girl, people like you, suddenly thrust into an unprecedented situation. In its suspense, its intense humanity, its unexpected denouement, it is perhaps Mr. Edmond Hamilton's finest novel. We are sure you will agree. "A most impressive example of understatement ... in science fiction. The author has made a largely successful effort to keep the major components of his story within the bounds of the human. Quite an accomplishment in view of the cosmic nature of the plot. Five stars." Galaxy Magazine . (from Amazon.com)
:)[3] The Man in the High Castle by Philp K. Dick - [John F, jgaiser, kennyc]
Amazon.com Review
In The Player of Games, Iain M. Banks presents a distant future that could almost be called the end of history. Humanity has filled the galaxy, and thanks to ultra-high technology everyone has everything they want, no one gets sick, and no one dies. It's a playground society of sports, stellar cruises, parties, and festivals. Jernau Gurgeh, a famed master game player, is looking for something more and finds it when he's invited to a game tournament at a small alien empire. Abruptly Banks veers into different territory. The Empire of Azad is exotic, sensual, and vibrant. It has space battle cruisers, a glowing court--all the stuff of good old science fiction--which appears old-fashioned in contrast to Gurgeh's home. At first it's a relief, but further exploration reveals the empire to be depraved and terrifically unjust. Its defects are gross exaggerations of our own, yet they indict us all the same. Clearly Banks is interested in the idea of a future where everyone can be mature and happy. Yet it's interesting to note that in order to give us this compelling adventure story, he has to return to a more traditional setting. Thoughtful science fiction readers will appreciate the cultural comparisons, and fans of big ideas and action will also be rewarded. --Brooks Peck
:)[3] The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi - [jgaiser, kennyc, AnemicOak]
From Wikipedia:
The Windup Girl is set in the 23rd century: Global Warming has raised the levels of world's oceans, carbon fuel sources have become depleted, and manually wound springs are used as energy storage devices. Biotechnology is dominant and mega corporations like AgriGen, PurCal and RedStar (called calorie companies) control food production through 'genehacked' seeds, and use bioterrorism, private armies and economic hitmen to create markets for their products. Frequent catastrophes, such as deadly and widespread plagues and illness, caused by genetically modified crops and mutant pests, ravage entire populations. The natural genetic seed stock of the world's plants has been almost completely supplanted by those that are genetically engineered to be sterile.
[1] News from Nowhere by William Morris - [lila55]
From Wikipedia:News from Nowhere (1890) is a classic work combining utopian socialism and soft science fiction written by the artist, designer and socialist pioneer William Morris. In the book, the narrator, William Guest, falls asleep after returning from a meeting of the Socialist League and awakes to find himself in a future society based on common ownership and democratic control of the means of production. In this society there is no private property, no big cities, no authority, no monetary system, no divorce, no courts, no prisons, and no class systems. This agrarian society functions simply because the people find pleasure in nature, and therefore they find pleasure in their work.
The book explores a number of aspects of this society, including its organisation and the relationships which it engenders between people. Morris cleverly fuses Marxism and the romance tradition when he presents himself as an enchanted figure in a time and place different from Victorian England. As Morris the romance character, quests for love and fellowship-and through them for a reborn self, he encounters romance archetypes in Marxist guises. Old Hammond is both the communist educator who teaches Morris the new world and the wise old man of romance. Dick and Clara are good comrades and the married lovers who aid Morris in his wanderings. The journey on the Thames is both a voyage through society transformed by revolution and a quest for happiness. The quests goal, met and found though only transiently, is Ellen, the symbol of the reborn age and the bride the alien cannot win. Ellen herself is a multidimensional figure; a working class woman emancipated under socialism, she is also a benign nature spirit as well as the soul in the form of a woman. The book offers Morris' answers to a number of frequent objections to socialism, and underlines his belief that socialism will entail not only the abolishment of private property but also of the divisions between art, life, and work.
In the novel, Morris tackles one of the most common criticisms of socialism; the supposed lack of incentive to work in a communist society. Morris' response is that all work should be creative and pleasurable. This differs from the majority of Socialist thinkers, who tend to assume that while work is a necessary evil, a well-planned equal society can reduce the amount of work needed to be done by each worker. News From Nowhere was written as a response to an earlier book called Looking Backward, a book that epitomizes a view of Socialism that Morris abhorred.
:)[3] The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy By Douglas Adams - [obs20, lila55, ficbot, Quake1028]
Description: "IRRESISTIBLE!" --The Boston Globe Seconds before the Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out-of-work actor. Together this dynamic pair begin a journey through space aided by … more »quotes from The Hitchhiker's Guide ("A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have") and a galaxy-full of fellow travelers: Zaphod Beeblebrox--the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch president of the galaxy; Trillian, Zaphod's girlfriend (formally Tricia McMillan), whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone; Marvin, a paranoid, brilliant, and chronically depressed robot; Veet Voojagig, a former graduate student who is obsessed with the disappearance of all the ballpoint pens he bought over the years. Where are these pens? Why are we born? Why do we die? Why do we spend so much time between wearing digital watches? For all the answers stick your thumb to the stars. And don't forget to bring a towel! "[A] WHIMSICAL ODYSSEY...Characters frolic through the galaxy with infectious joy." --Publishers Weekly From the Paperback edition. (from eBooks.com)
[2] To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis - [BenG, voodoo_pepperweb]
Like Doomsday Book, Blackout, All Clear, and Firewatch it features Oxford's time travelling historians, though the major characters in the other books are minor characters in this one.
From Booklist--
What a stitch! Willis' delectable romp through time from 2057 back to Victorian England, with a few side excursions into World War II and medieval Britain, will have readers happily glued to the pages. Rich dowager Lady Schrapnell has invaded Oxford University's time travel research project in 2057, promising to endow it if they help her rebuild Coventry Cathedral, destroyed by a Nazi air raid in 1940. In effect, she dragoons almost everyone in the program to make trips back in time to locate items--in particular, the bishop's bird stump[though they are unclear about what it is exactly]....
Time traveler Ned Henry is suffering from advanced time lag and has been sent, he thinks, for rest and relaxation to 1888, where he connects with fellow time traveler Verity Kindle and discovers that he is actually there to correct an incongruity created when Verity inadvertently brought something forward from the past.
Take an excursion through time, add chaos theory, romance, plenty of humor, a dollop of mystery, and a spoof of the Victorian novel, and you end up with what seems like a comedy of errors but is actually a grand scheme "involving the entire course of history and all of time and space that, for some unfathomable reason, chose to work out its designs with cats and croquet mallets and penwipers, to say nothing of the dog...."
--Sally Estes
It won both the Hugo and Locus Awards in 1999, and was nominated for the Nebula Award in 1998.
:)[3] Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke - [seagull, ctol, brecklundin]
Spoiler:
I can only find the one large print format for this. Anyone else find something? - Inkmesh search
Quote:
Suddenly space ships appear above all the Earth’s great cities. Soon the aliens announce a new regime enforcing peace and bringing prosperity to the planet. But some suspect ulterior motives particularly since humanity is no longer free to pursue space travel and the aliens never appear publicly. Years later they do appear but bring a message of the destruction of mankind as we know it and the transformation of human children into superior beings.
:)[3] A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr. - [seagull, jgaiser, lila55]
Spoiler:
Inkmesh search - only large print at one site. Anyone else other links?
Quote:
This is a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel first published in 1960 that has never been out of print and gone through 25 reprints. It is considered one of the classics of science fiction. Appealing to mainstream and genre critics and readers alike, it won the 1961 Hugo Award for best science fiction novel.
The story starts in a Roman Catholic monastery in the desert of the Southwestern United States after a devastating nuclear war, then spans thousands of years as civilization rebuilds itself. The monks of the Albertian Order of Leibowitz take up the mission of preserving the surviving remnants of man's scientific knowledge until the day the outside world is again ready for it. Eventually, the organization seeks refuge and a mission in the stars. It's themes of religion, recurrence, and church versus state have generated a significant body of scholarly research
First published in the Soviet 1920s, Zamyatin's dystopic novel left an indelible watermark on 20th-century culture, from Orwell's 1984 to Terry Gilliam's movie Brazil . Randall's exciting new translation strips away the Cold War connotations and makes us conscious of Zamyatin's other influences, from Dostoyevski to German expressionism. D-503 is a loyal "cipher" of the totalitarian One State, literally walled in by glass; he is a mathematician happily building the world's first rocket, but his life is changed by meeting I-330, a woman with "sharp teeth" who keeps emerging out of a sudden vampirish dusk to smile wickedly on the poor narrator and drive him wild with desire. (When she first forces him to drink alcohol, the mind leaps to Marlene Dietrich in The Blue Angel .) In becoming a slave to love, D-503 becomes, briefly, a free man. In Randall's hands, Zamyatin's modernist idiom crackles ("I only remember his fingers: they flew out of his sleeve, like bundles of beams"), though the novel sometimes seems prophetic of the onset of Stalinism, particularly in the bleak ending.
:)[3] The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell - [ficbot, Latinandgreek, voodoo_pepperweb]
From Amazon: In 2019, humanity finally finds proof of extraterrestrial life when a listening post in Puerto Rico picks up exquisite singing from a planet which will come to be known as Rakhat. While United Nations diplomats endlessly debate a possible first contact mission, the Society of Jesus quietly organizes an eight-person scientific expedition of its own. What the Jesuits find is a world so beyond comprehension that it will lead them to question the meaning of being "human." When the lone survivor of the expedition, Emilio Sandoz, returns to Earth in 2059, he will try to explain what went wrong...
:)[3] A Fire Upon The Deep by Vernor Vinge [brecklundin, kennyc, voodoo_pepperweb]
From Amazon:
In this Hugo-winning 1991 SF novel, Vernor Vinge gives us a wild new cosmology, a galaxy-spanning "Net of a Million Lies," some finely imagined aliens, and much nail-biting suspense.
Faster-than-light travel remains impossible near Earth, deep in the galaxy's Slow Zone--but physical laws relax in the surrounding Beyond. Outside that again is the Transcend, full of unguessable, godlike "Powers." When human meddling wakes an old Power, the Blight, this spreads like a wildfire mind virus that turns whole civilizations into its unthinking tools. And the half-mythical Countermeasure, if it exists, is lost with two human children on primitive Tines World.
Serious complications follow. One paranoid alien alliance blames humanity for the Blight and launches a genocidal strike. Pham Nuwen, the man who knows about Countermeasure, escapes this ruin in the spacecraft Out of Band--heading for more violence and treachery, with 500 warships soon in hot pursuit. On his destination world, the fascinating Tines are intelligent only in combination: named "individuals" are small packs of the doglike aliens. Primitive doesn't mean stupid, and opposed Tine leaders wheedle the young castaways for information about guns and radios. Low-tech war looms, with elaborately nested betrayals and schemes to seize Out of Band if it ever arrives. The tension becomes extreme... while half the Beyond debates the issues on galactic Usenet.
[2] Spin by Robert Charles Wilson [brecklundin, Witchbaby]
1885, the North West Frontier. Rudyard Kipling is witness to a British army action to repress a local uprising. And to a terrifying intervention by a squadron of tanks from 2137. Before the full impact of this extraordinary event has even begun to sink in Kipling, his friends and the tanks are, themselves flung back to the 4th century and the midst of Alexander the Great's army. Mankind's time odyssey has begun. It is a journey that will see Alexander avoid his premature death and carve out an Empire that expands from Carthage to China. And it will present mankind with two devastating truths. Aliens are amongst us and have been manipulating our past and our future. And that future extends only as far as 2137 for that is the date Earth will be destroyed. This is SF that spans countless centuries and carries cutting edge ideas on time travel and alien intervention. It shows two of the genre's masters at their groundbreaking best.
[2] Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan [John F, Moe The Cat]
In a society in which death has been rendered practically obsolete, suicide and murder take on different significances. After a particularly brutal offing, former UN envoy Takeshi Kovacs finds himself "resleeved"--that is, his consciousness has been put in a new body--and hired as a private investigator by Laurens Bancroft, one of twenty-fifth-century society's old rich in Bay City (formerly San Francisco).
jabberwock_11
10-22-2010 03:12 AM
I'd like to nominate Old Man's War, by John Scalzi. I've had this book sitting in my ebook reader for a long time now and I think it's about time that I finally read it.
I believe that this was the first English language science fiction novel, and it still holds up today. It created a genre of fiction - time travelling. Written in the 1890s, it deals with issues such as class warfare that in the author's view are timeless. Yet it is an exciting adventure story more than a political tract.
This is available from the free MobileRead library.
Moe The Cat
10-22-2010 03:59 AM
I will second Old Man's War by John Scalzi.
ctol
10-22-2010 05:03 AM
I would like to nominate Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke. I think it is one of his best efforts.
lene1949
10-22-2010 05:06 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by ctol
(Post 1175347)
I would like to nominate Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke. I think it is one of his best efforts.
Do you have a link or description?
dreams
10-22-2010 05:07 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by ctol
(Post 1175347)
I would like to nominate Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke. I think it is one of his best efforts.
Do you have a link, please? I did a quick search and only came up with a large print edition.
crich70
10-22-2010 05:08 AM
I nominate City At World's End by Edmond Hamilton. It can be found here: http://manybooks.net/titles/hamilton...worldsend.html Apparently it fell through some sort of hole in copyright back in the day and is free to download though published in 1951.
John F
10-22-2010 09:25 AM
I'd like to nominate The Man in the High Castle by Philp K. Dick
Quote:
Dick's Hugo Award-winning 1962 alternative history considers the question of what would have happened if the Allied Powers had lost WWII. Some 20 years after that loss, the United States and much of the world has now been split between Japan and Germany, the major hegemonic states. But the tension between these two powers is mounting, and this stress is playing out in the western U.S. Through …
pilotbob
10-22-2010 09:35 AM
Folks... when you nominate a book, can you please post a small summary of what it is about. Providing a link to the book or a better description is fine... but having something posted with the nomination makes it more likley that the book will be seconded/thirded.
Old Man's War is a great book but I've already read it. :)
I don't think it's Science Fiction.
There's some science here and there, but unluckily, it's definitely not fiction....
;);););););)
JSWolf
10-22-2010 10:18 AM
Please let's not nominate a book as science fiction just because three people want it. let's nominate a book as science fiction because it is science fiction.
