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Guest Marneywasmurdered

Sci-fi favourites and recommendations.

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Guest Marneywasmurdered

I just downloaded a ton of ebooks by Isaac Asimov. I've always wanted to read his stuff but never got around to it before.

 

I read "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card a week ago and really enjoyed it.

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If you enjoyed Ender's Game, I *strongly* suggest you read the first sequel, Speaker for the Dead. Ender's Game is pretty much my favorite book ever, and Speaker is right up there. There's much less action then the first one, and the setting is very different, but it's just an excellent book.

 

The following sequels, Xenocide and Children of the Mind both get a lot more talky and into more weird meta-physics stuff, but I really enjoy Xenocide, though I don't recall being thrilled with CotM. I've only read that one a handful of times, compared to the countless times I've read the others.

 

The Shadow series isn't bad either, but it's pretty different. If you don't know, it follows Bean instead of Ender, the first book being Ender's Shadow. It follows basically the same timeline as Ender's Game, except Bean is the main character. From there, there's Shadow of the Hegemon, Shadow Puppets, and Shadow of the Giant. In my eyes, these books go downhill with each one; the general story is fairly different, as it deals with what happens in the immediate aftermath of the original novel, and is a lot more political maneuvering, warfare-type stuff. Still good books, worth reading, but I can't give them as strong a recommendation as I can the other books. I think there's another book in this series coming.

 

Oh, I'm also currently reading Ender in Exile, which is what happens to Ender so immediately after the original book that thus far it's just been things mentioned in the final chapter of Ender's Game. It's alright so far, but (and this goes for the Shadow series too) I find Card has an odd tendency to, if not out-right retcon, then to just change what we knew about the previous books, but in ways that aggravate me. Hard to explain without giving examples, you know?

 

But yeah, all that said, Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead are excellent, excellent books, which everyone who enjoys science fiction should read. Xenocide, in my opinion, is pretty awesome as well, but it seriously took me like, 3 reads to fully appreciate it, so I can understand why people wouldn't like it. Still, I'd say read the first two at least, then decide if you're interested enough to go further.

 

Oh, and where does one download ebooks?

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Altered Carbon. First person narrative, noirish cyber-punk. Basically a detective story, but it explores it's concept well. The concept being: In the future your soul is digitized and can be uploaded, stored, and transferred. A former special ops soldier is taken out of prison/storage to solve a murder of a wealthy man. Thing is, the soul of the guy who died (the employer) is still intact, he's brought back, and can't remember the last few hours of his life. It's up to the detective/soldier to piece together what happened.

 

The books best feature is its dialogue. The pacing is good and there are a fair amount of plot twists.

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Guest Vitamin X

I'm a huge Harry Turtledove fan. Sure, the repetition gets annoying with the books, but that's so anyone can jump in and read them. I'm finishing up the Timeline-191 series right now after being a big fan of the whole Worldwar/Colonization saga. Really pissed that the last book never got a sequel so we could figure out what happens at the end of Homeward Bound, so Colonization as a whole was pretty disappointing at the end.

 

Anyways, yeah, Ender's Game- fantastic. I've been going through a re-read of classic sci-fi and just read up Fahrenheit 451 the other day- a lot better than I remember it.

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Farenheit 451 is amazing in several ways, but especially in how eerily prescient it was on a few points. It basically predicted the entire Political Correctness craze, long decades before it happened. Also, its description of televisions getting so big that they cover an entire wall, but they only air increasingly mindless shows... nuff said.

 

Ender's Game is, as said, fucking awesome. Unfortunately, it seems like with every sequel Card writes, the franchise gets increasingly worse. The Speaker sorta-trilogy was okay, but seemed to be dragged out for much longer than it needed to be, especially in the last two books which really felt like they could've been condensed into one. The Shadow series starts out as a puzzling retcon, and then degenerates into a third-rate Tom Clancy knockoff. And I just read Ender in Exile recently, and thought it was totally worthless, just a bunch of people standing around and talking about inconsequential shit while retconning half the damn storyline of the entire series.

 

Would something like House of Leaves technically be considered "sci-fi"? It's damned weird, and at times too self-conciously clever for its own good, but very different and ambitious. I recommend it most to any pretentious college-kid types, but anyone who enjoys unique stuff would find it interesting.

 

Anyone ever read (or even heard of) any of Jim Munroe's stuff? I've caught two of 'em, Angry Young Spaceman and Flyboy Action Figure Comes With Gas Mask, and he's interesting enough to give a mention as a somewhat talented albeit fairly unknown artist.

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The Speaker sorta-trilogy was okay, but seemed to be dragged out for much longer than it needed to be, especially in the last two books which really felt like they could've been condensed into one.

 

I find it funny that you say that, cuz I've read that Card had intended to finish at the third book, but as he was writing it the story kept getting bigger so he broke it apart.

 

I'm curious Jingus, do you consider Xenocide and Children of the Mind to be of the same caliber? I don't care much for the latter, but I enjoy Xenocide quite a bit. I'd rank it below the first two books, but above pretty much everything else.

 

And have you read any of the short stories? Like, the one about Ender's father? Man, you wanna talk about pissing me off with retconning...

 

 

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No, haven't read the short stories. As for Xenocide and Children of the Mind, I pretty much see them as Speaker for the Dead: Parts 2 & 3. The end of Speaker was obviously kind of a cliff hanger with more resolution coming in the future, so I don't consider it to be so much of a stand-alone work. I'd say it was the best part of the trilogy, since it moved at lot faster than Xeno and Children, which as mentioned felt like they were overstuffed with filler and could've easily been distilled into one book.

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I just read Babylon Babies(Basis for the Vin Diesel movie Babylon A.D.), and thought it was a pretty good sci-fi book. I've been meaning to check out some Orson Scott Card. I'm not a huge sci-fi fan, but enjoy a good one when I run across it.

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Guest cobainwasmurdered
I'm a huge Harry Turtledove fan. Sure, the repetition gets annoying with the books, but that's so anyone can jump in and read them. I'm finishing up the Timeline-191 series right now after being a big fan of the whole Worldwar/Colonization saga. Really pissed that the last book never got a sequel so we could figure out what happens at the end of Homeward Bound, so Colonization as a whole was pretty disappointing at the end.

 

I really like Turtledove also. His alternate history where the Spanish Armada succeeded and Shakespeare got involved in it was good. I can't remember the title. I also enjoyed his fantasy version of world war 2 with magic.

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Guest Vitamin X
I'm a huge Harry Turtledove fan. Sure, the repetition gets annoying with the books, but that's so anyone can jump in and read them. I'm finishing up the Timeline-191 series right now after being a big fan of the whole Worldwar/Colonization saga. Really pissed that the last book never got a sequel so we could figure out what happens at the end of Homeward Bound, so Colonization as a whole was pretty disappointing at the end.

 

I really like Turtledove also. His alternate history where the Spanish Armada succeeded and Shakespeare got involved in it was good. I can't remember the title. I also enjoyed his fantasy version of world war 2 with magic.

Oh, that's Ruled Britannia. Really an interesting book. In The Presence Of Mine Enemies is really good too, it follows a family of secret Jews in what would be modern day following a Nazi victory in World War II.

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Fucking "Neuromancer." I read it when I was 16, and I've been a fan ever since. Hell, read the whole trilogy.

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I second Neuromancer, which is my favorite book. Really anything by William Gibson is great. Excellent writer, who was very ahead of his time in the 80's and 90's. Always great for a jarring simile, and some beautiful language.

 

In terms of classic Asimov, read his Foundation series! It's really, really great. You'd think the material would be quite dry, but it's taut and well-paced.

 

the first few Dune books. I've never read such amazing world-building as this series. Not even Lord of the Rings. It also just reads well as a good old sci-fi actioner, but it's so much more.

 

If you count it as sci-fi, I heartily recommend Slaughterhouse Five :-)

 

And lastly, a personal favorite. Harry Harrison was a hell of an author back in the day. The first few Stainless Steel Rat books, Bill the Galactic Hero (none of the wretched sequels), Make room Make room! (Soylent Green!) and Deathworld are all fuckin' GREAT.

 

Oh, and I thought Ender was very good (though hardly the be-all end-all of sci-fi) Speaker was Ok, and Xenocide was shite. One of the dullest books I've ever read.

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If you count it as sci-fi, I heartily recommend Slaughterhouse Five

All the rest of us should hang our heads in shame for not mentioning this already. Also, come to think of it, weird that Douglas Adams and Hitchiker's Guide hasn't been named yet either; it revolutionized the entire modern version of the "whimsical sci-fi satire" genre.

 

Anyone here read A Canticle for Lebowitz? Is it as good as its reputation suggests? I've checked it out from the library at least twice, but never got around to reading it before taking it back.

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