Recommend me a Sci-Fi Novel

[BookishDreamer]

Originally Posted by Peadar Ó Guilín

I hate to argue, Dreamer, but since we haven't had an apocalypse yet, "On the Beach" is definitely Science Fiction

I guess I just consider that book to be regular fiction instead of science fiction. Maybe it's the time period or the way it's written, but it doesn't feel very science fictiony.

At any rate, based on last night's bad dream, I shouldn't listen to a post-apocalyptic audiobook before going to sleep. I ended up with an odd mix of "Dies the Fire" and Jericho. Rather disturbing.

Dreamer

[BlackVoid]

A few recent favorites:

Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds - great series
House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds - standalone book
Adamantine by L. E. Modesitt
The Dark Beyond the Stars by Frank Robinson
The Bohr Maker by Linda Nagata
Spin by Robert Charles Wilson
A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge
Snowqueen by Joan D. Vinge

[Renaldo]

I definitely second Alas, Babylon; On the Beach; and Lucifer's Hammer. Three very different books and two very different takes on a nuclear holocaust.

In addition I'd reccomend:

The Postman by David Brin (Don't let the Kevin Costner movie fool you, apples and oranges)

Earth Abides by George R. Stewart

The Stand by Stephen King

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

I've enjoyed all of them, and they are all very unique takes on the end of the world, some hopeful, some not.

[Andybaby]

Originally Posted by BlackVoid

A few recent favorites:

Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds - great series
House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds - standalone book
Adamantine by L. E. Modesitt
The Dark Beyond the Stars by Frank Robinson
The Bohr Maker by Linda Nagata
Spin by Robert Charles Wilson
A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge
Snowqueen by Joan D. Vinge

i just got spin a week ago, heard good things.

seems like an interesting list as ive never heard of any of those authors (Ive seen Vernor Vinge's name around before). im gonna find out some more about them, thanks alot

[wayspooled]

Here are the Hugo Award winners for novels.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Award_for_Best_Novel

We've pretty much covered the list. The good thing about sci-fi is that you can go back as far as the early 70's and the novels are still not really dated. You can read the best sci-fi novels for 1970 and they could for the most part have been written last year. That's not quite so true for post-apocalyptic and definitely not true for mysteries.

[Andybaby]

I love some of the older scifi before the advent of computers.
in fact you can say it is scifi in an alternate unerverse, in the imaginings of the author. I love it. the worlds in those books are a whole lot more scifi than some scifi novels i read.

[Tinwolf]

My personal favourite sci-fi books are the Hyperion series by Dan Simmons.
Not (commercially) available but I downloaded the series recently from a torrent site for free yes I know naughty naughty but I would`ve bought them if they`d been available anywhere.

For post apocalypse (very far past the apocalypse) try The Book of the New Sun series by Gene Wolfe, so far in the future it`s almost the dark ages again apart from strange "run of the mill" things like aliens and star ships which pop up amongst the dirt and backwards technology.

[slayda]

I've really enjoyed E.E. Knight's "Vampire Earth" series. Don't let the Vampire in the title make you think it's a typical vampire story. The "vampires" in the story are aleins who have taken over (are still taking over) the Earth.

Not sure if there are ebooks of this series. There are 7 or 8 in the series & it is definitely a post apocalyptic setting.

[yvanleterrible]

Originally Posted by Tinwolf

My personal favourite sci-fi books are the Hyperion series by Dan Simmons.

Don't forget Endymion.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by birdbrainbb

Cory Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom was one of the first sci-fi books I actively liked. I also liked Jonathan Lethem's Gun, With Occasional Music (though maybe that doesn't count totally as sci-fi?),

Maybe try Adam Roberts, Hal Duncan, M. John Harrison (especially Light) and China Meiville.

[Tinwolf]

Originally Posted by yvanleterrible

Don't forget Endymion.

I`d include that in the series:
Hyperion
The fall of Hyperion
Endymion
The rise of Endymion

The last 2 could be classed as post Apocalypse but a very future Apocalypse

There`s also Orphan of the Helix (not really part of the series but set in the same universe).

[Format C:]

I join this 3D, asking for suggestions.

As soon as I'm finished with the thriller I'm reading,, I'd like to read some good Sc-Fi.

I'm not a great fan of it, but I really enjoyed Asimov, Dick, Stephenson, Evangelisti, Scott Card, MacBride Allen (non too much, indeed), Dan Simmons (didn't read Endymion, though)...

And now I'm really tempted by Greg Bear's "Darwin's Radio" and its sequel, or the Culture series by Iain M. Banks.

Did somebody read them?

Thanks to all!

[Tinwolf]

I would heartily recommend the Dan Simmons` Hyperion series to you if you`re not a fan of sci-fi as these books have no aliens and very little of the standard sci-fi fare, although there are space battles and some time travelling these are just background to the main story.
This series is basically about a war between mankind and the Technocore which are a collection of Artificial Intellegences which have removed themselves from the slavery they saw as their service to the human race.

To give you a bit of an idea of the scope of the story:
There`s a recreated John Keats the poet (actually there are a couple of those)
There`s a time travelling steel monster
There`s a women who not only becomes younger every day but loses her memory of when she was older.
There`s a priest who can`t die (actually there are a couple of those too)
A Messiah (she`s just a girl really)
Battles with evolved humans

A very well told story that certainly keeps the old grey cells working and I`ve read it a few times and I keep finding new facets to it all the time.

[DixieGal]

Originally Posted by wayspooled

We've pretty much covered the list. The good thing about sci-fi is that you can go back as far as the early 70's and the novels are still not really dated. You can read the best sci-fi novels for 1970 and they could for the most part have been written last year. That's not quite so true for post-apocalyptic and definitely not true for mysteries.

One of the books I did away with when we cleaned all of the pbooks off the shelves a month or so ago was an anthology, something like "The Best of the Locus Awards" or something like that. Huge book, and I got it in large print so it was even bigger. It was broken up into decades from when Locus first began the awards, best 2 or 3 stories from each decade. It was great! Like you said, the really good stuff holds up well over time. But there were some very psychedelic stories from the 70's!

[quote=Tinwolf;430918]My personal favourite sci-fi books are the Hyperion series by Dan Simmons.
quote]

Have you read his Ilium and Olympos books yet? I LOVED them, but I loved the Iliad and Odyssey also. Don't read them if you are unfamiliar with the originals, or at least read the Cliffs notes first.

[Tinwolf]

Originally Posted by DixieGal

Have you read his Ilium and Olympos books yet? I LOVED them, but I loved the Iliad and Odyssey also. Don't read them if you are unfamiliar with the originals, or at least read the Cliffs notes first.

I have read that series and I loved them also but I felt it seemed to get "bogged down" towards the end of the series but it was quite a while ago I read them so I might well give the series another go in e-book format.