Best Sci-Fi novels you've ever read?

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Mr. Oragahn
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Re: Best Sci-Fi novels you've ever read?

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Thu Feb 21, 2013 7:26 pm

Wow, you ingested that much SW EU??? Dammit, that's just so impressive. I mean by that, mentally insane. :D

Hyperion is quite like Star Wars with an ever greater fantasy aspect to it, despite the rather glaring lack of anything really magical. Namely, the technology is so advanced and seemless that you're either dealing with advanced civilization having access to top of the art MARINES warfare (gear of the FORCE regiments) but which you can relate to (think your run of the mill advanced action SF movie/book/game), or you literally jump to übertech, mostly anything related to the humans of the future, the farcasters (portals), the time tombs or the Shrike itself and his toys.
There's even a spaceshiptree that shoots beams.

In Dune, I wouldn't say that the fantasy side was that heavy. It was more like mystic, very soft tech. But the technology was so absent in a way that you'd focus on the more "esoteric" stuff and the mind powers. I liked that, the technology was very, very weirdly brought forth in Herbert's book.

Dan Simmons does write horror and I may read some of them, I've heard they're good, although I've went through the Ilium books and they're rather meh imho.
Plus I'm not asking for horror per se, although I'm not against some in a mainly SF setting.

I tried written cyberpunk but although I like the genre in games and movies, yardstone books such as Neuromancer and Snow Crash simply didn't work. It's not that they smell outdated at times (especially Snow Crash) but I find the stories quite bland. Snow Crash, oh boy, I couldn't read past page 50 or so. Just too much ninja shuriken hax. Even for movies and games, I tend to prefer when the cyberpunk is more subtle. For example, I think Deus Ex was a fantastic game, but I'd never read any novelization of the game's plot.

I'm yet to go through some Culture novels mind you but I tried two of them and I just didn't feel any magic.
I still have several of Clarke, Heinlein and Asimov books to read. That's not the problem, I'm looking for other gems that I may have not noticed.

I have collected a series of book names or authors you might have heard about:

Gene Wolf - Book of the New Sun
James Blish
Le Guin - Left Hand of Darkness

Regarding Thomas Covenant, if I get the plan, considering his conditioning, it seems that if he wants to use the ring, he has to become a lil' bit crazy?
I'm not sure I'd go through all the books, so is the first one sufficient enough as a stand alone book or does it really, really need sequels to feel absolutely complete?

I'd certainly give a try about the other books, they sound worth the try. I give a lot of importance to character chemistry.

Your auto-snore mechanism is funny to hear about. I could explain you what Stargate essentially is, the movie that is, and it is true that it's not super high paced, while a tad campy at the same time, but done with a completely supported seriousness. In fact, it uses mystery to keep people wanting to see more. If you're not digging the whole archeology meets future tech, I can see why you wouldn't get into the movie that easily though. It's like watching Lawrence of Arabia meets Dune, somehow. Of course if you don't get hooked, it won't work on you. It's also a very specific atmosphere that won't work with everybody. The show is quite different. As a matter of fact, only Stargate Universe has really approached the movie in terms of pace, style and even, somehow, seriousness, despite the fact that the overall theme is quite different.

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Khas
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Re: Best Sci-Fi novels you've ever read?

Post by Khas » Thu Feb 21, 2013 8:24 pm

All the Ninja stuff in Snow Crash is near the beginning. At least, that's what I remember of it. It loses that stuff later.

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Mr. Oragahn
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Re: Best Sci-Fi novels you've ever read?

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Fri Feb 22, 2013 9:51 pm

Khas wrote:All the Ninja stuff in Snow Crash is near the beginning. At least, that's what I remember of it. It loses that stuff later.
A pity cause I bought that book years ago for the overall theme, but the form was quite repelling.

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mojo
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Re: Best Sci-Fi novels you've ever read?

Post by mojo » Sat Mar 09, 2013 8:41 am

i forgot this existed again. losing my obsessive, pointless hatred of mike dicenso has reminded me that i was bored of this debate otherwise, so i lurk less.

the first thomas covenant novel is completely self-contained, to the point that it's hard to imagine the guy had any plans to continue. your understanding of his wacky 'wild magic' abilities is just about right, although it doesn't really get explored much until the second TRILOGY, so if you only read the first book, i can at least tell you you have the right idea.

i have read some ursula k. le guin, mainly 'the left hand of darkness', which was ok, and 'the lathe of heaven', which i loved. for some reason i always get her mixed up with anne mcaffrey and those stupid dragon books.

goddamn cyberpunk is the bane of the science fiction community. like ten guys got together and decided everything needed to be gritty and dark after blade runner hit so hard, not understanding that cyberpunk films existed in the first place so that making sci-fi movies wouldn't cost so goddamn much. there is no special effects budget in writing a story, so fuck that. not that blade runner sucks, it's awesome. but we only really needed the one. in the end, they ended up making sci-fi look even more silly to the mainstream audience than it already does, by wearing giant mirrored sunglasses and acting like rock stars. to my mind, if you were a huge dork in high school (no offense to anyone, a list would include my name) you are not a rock star. being popular among people who read enough sci-fi to care about particular authors does not help.

in the end it seems that as far as sci-fi that you would enjoy goes, you have read far more widely than i have. i can only go back to the few suggestions i would make to anyone who likes to read.

blood music, by greg bear
flowers for algernon, by daniel keyes
stranger in a strange land, by heinlein
time enough for love, by heinlein
lord of light, by roger zelazny
the stars my destination, by alfred bester
the man who awoke, by lawrence manning

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