So I see that we have a thread for fantasy, but nothing for the other side of the genre coin - Sci-Fi. Fantasy always seems to do better than Sci-Fi in the world of books, but I'm an equally voracious reader of both.

Got my start in early secondary with Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy as well as Timothy Zahn's Star Wars: Heir to the Empire books. For the next few years at least it was almost certainly a mix of stuff like the GrandMasters (Asimov, Arthur C Clarke, Heinlen, Silverberg, LeGuin) & classics like Roger Zelazny (Lord of Light), Joe Haldeman (Forever War) along with mass-market novelizations like the Star Wars & Star Trek books. I still have a soft spot for the Star Trek books of Peter David & the Deep Space Nine: Relaunch books.

My more recent reads tend to be all over the place. Some highlights:

A Fire Upon the Deep & A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge. High level space science fiction, set in the faaaar future. Not a new series, but still very good and worth a read if you can find them.

The Takeshi Kovacs trilogy by Richard Morgan - an interesting sci-fi dystopia. There's no faster than light travel, but there is FTL communication, which allows people - like the main character, a military specialist - to be downloaded into freshly created bodies clear across the stars. Very grim & gritty, and very good.

Iain M Banks' Culture novels - Another high level space science fiction, set in the faaaar future with AIs, ringworlds, metaphysical threats but still possessing humour as well as emotional resonance. There are several books, and they are all good, but by far the best (and a must read for any fan of SF) are The Player of Games, Use of Weapons & Look to Windward - the last of which is one of the few books that managed to gut-punch me emotionally, not with any specific scene but simply with the general tone. Excellent, and highly recommended.

Neal Stephenson, specifically Snowcrash (of course ), Diamond Age, Cryptonomicon & Anathem. Despite a common weakness (still can't really write an ending...), these are some excellent sci-fi. The first two are more cyberpunk, and the last two are...not. They are all incredibly good, & some of the few books that I regularly re-read.

Old Man's War by John Scalzi.If you've ever read Starship Troopers, this is the perfect counterpoint novel. If you haven't, it's still a damn good & fun read. BTW, if you ever find a copy of his older book called Agent of the Stars, read it. It's hillarious... Scalzi has a very good touch with humour.

I'm sure there are other Sci-Fi fans out here. What are your favourites & what are some of your recent highlights?

*snicker*. The auto censor here is really screwed up.

Yeah, remeber the Dune books.... gave up after God Emperor, IIRC. Don't plan on reading Seven Suns, as sounds a bit silly (hidden aliens popping up suddenly) and KJA... well, I don't really have high opinion of him.

Still here, down to lurking though. My current reading is more fantasy than SF (waiting for paperback of Iain Banks Matter to come out)

Tried reading Weber, but yeah, the main character is the literal definition of a Mary Sue.

Haven't read most of the authors secretquirrel mentioned, except for Sagan. My main exposure to singularity in sf has been through guys like Robert Charles Wilson & Tobias S. Buckell. I'm actually not to enamoured of singularity as a concept as I like my SF to be more mundane, not really keen on a lot of pie-in-the-sky notions.

Ender's Game is one of the finest SF books ever written. Everything else by Card is a disappointment in comparison, so my suggestion is just read EG & stop there.

This post has been edited by snowcrash: May 25 2009, 02:35 AM

To each their own, Weber is too much like Goodkind for me to like his writing, but he's certainly good for light fluff reading.

My recomendation to readers who space opera's like Honor Harrington is to look for Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga. I don't know if any collected versions exist, but the main books are these:

Shards of Honor
Barrayar
The Warrior's Apprentice
The Vor Game
Cetaganda
Brothers in Arms
Mirror Dance
Memory
Komarr
A Civil Campaign
Diplomatic Immunity


They're, excellent & suitably epic books & pack a fair few emotional punches. Read the first 4 as close together as you can for the biggest impact.

Hi redninja, & welcome to the sf/f genre!

Neal Stephenson is a good read, but I hesitate to recommend his books (other than Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon & maybe Diamond Age) to someone getting into genre fiction, as he is a very demanding writer. His Baroque Cycle books (which I suspect are what you have) are very good, but very tough reading as well.

I've never been fond of Heinlein either, so I understand your dislike of Stranger.... Try some Arthur C Clarke, Asimov or Zelazny if you want to read the old masters. Be warned though - these are writers of a different time and generationn so they will be somewhat chauvinistic/ male-dominated. Try Ursula K. Le Guin & Julian May for old school writers who are somewhat different in their approach.

Looking at newer writers, if you liked Snow Crash, you 1. display very good taste , and 2. may like some of recc's from the first post, like Richard Morgan, Iain M Banks & John Scalzi. Their writing is more contemporary than the old masters, & tends to be more action oriented as well.