Tuesday Media Recommendations: Science Fiction and Fantasy Books

Post your recommendations in the comments; other weeks, there'll be other posts for other genres and other formats.

Comments

[rswallen]

The Mistborn trilogy & The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson

[jb]

Came here to suggest the Stormlight Archive.

The best thing is if you start now, by the time you finish the first four books, the fifth book will be out (set for publication in December). It's supposed to complete a relatively standalone first half of the series, so you don't have any risk of getting stuck waiting for a last book or two to complete the series. Having been burned by George RR Martin and Patrick Rothfuss, I'm extremely reluctant to start in-flight fantasy series at this point.

[KeithK]

Sanderson seems to be an entirely different type of person/author than Martin and is prolific so I wouldn't be too worried about him not finishing a series barring catastrophe. But I get it. I just finished reading the Wheel of Time, which I originally started in (checks notes) 1990.

[jb]

Yeah, Sanderson keeps his website updated with progress on his writing (and actual meaningful updates, not periodic lies to get people off his back) and seems very disciplined about making progress.

He's not an amazing writer, but not terrible either, and I find the worlds he populates and magic systems really fun.

[Heedless]

Ironically, Sanderson is the guy they called in to finish AWoT when Jordan died.

[Libertatem]

Piggybacking on this--

As a fan of both series, I find Mistborn to be the more interesting, as well as the easier series to get into. There are six books in the Mistborn series, three set in one era, and three set in a future era. Great reads!

[rswallen]

There's 7 as of 2022; 3 in the Final Empire era and 4 in the Wax and Wayne era.

[Sarcastr0]

The Rithmatist is a Sanderson young adult novel that I found pretty diverting.

[GKHoff]

Would you describe the series as more like science fiction or more like fantasy?

[rswallen]

Both series are fantasy, though Sanderson has plans for a future Mistborn series to include space travel, and possibly things like FTL travel.

[Noscitur a sociis]

They have a fantasy feel in that they’re set in an alternate world kind of like past earth where people fight with swords and use magic. But the magic systems are very rigorously worked out with the rules made clear to the reader about what is and isn’t possible, so the experience is much more science fiction like than most other fantasy. (If anything, the system in Mistborn almost felt like a video game.)

[MN2828]

It is kind of science fiction in that the Stormlight series, the Mistborn series and basically all of his novels take place on different planets in the same universe. People (humans/aliens) visit each of the planets using spaceships. He makes this more explicit in his novels that are outside of the main series.

[jb]

You’re right that the entire Cosmere is a blend of the two. But I think if you consider the Stormlight books on their own, it’d be hard to call them anything but fantasy. Yes, the magic system is carefully thought out, but it’s still obviously magic. For me that’s the key difference between Sci Fi and fantasy, rather than time period–if you have a bunch of people fighting with swords and no magic, that’s just historical fiction.

From this perspective, magical realism would be a sub genre of fantasy as well, in which case I’ll sneak IQ84 by Murakami into the suggestions. And if we want a more “literary” Sci Fi choice, I’ll throw in Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro.

[Artemis Fowl]

Foundation trilogy by Issac Asimov is my favorite but I've been taken to reading day Bradbury short stories and can't recommend him enough.

[Brett Bellmore]

He certainly has a different "feel" from most other SF writers. Not that everything he wrote was SF, by a long shot. He just occasionally used SF settings, really.

[The Folding Attorney]

When I was in elementary school in the mid-'60s, someone thought "R is for Rocket" and "S is for Space" were books for children. They weren't. I read them and I was so weirded out that I went off Bradbury for decades, though I love SF.

I rediscovered Bradbury in grad school and came to love his stuff. Nobody can say things as simply, and yet as evocatively, as Ray Bradbury.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

If you enjoy Bradbury, I would strongly recommend finding Cordwainer Smith collections.

[Brett Bellmore]

Diaspora, by Greg Egan.

Absolutely anything by Lois McMaster Bujold.

[susancol]

Second the rec for "Anything by Lois McMasters Bujold" (wording that was what immediately came to my mind when I read today's topic! 😉

[sbratman]

Also Permutation City, by Egan. The two books together are an excellent course in the theory of consciousness.

[Sarcastr0]

A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge.

Jhereg by Steven Brust

[Brett Bellmore]

Met Vinge at a worldcon; He was doing a talk right after Across Realtime issued, and asked the audience if we had any idea why everybody had disappeared. (It was a major mystery in the book, never resolved.)

I suggested it was because they'd found someplace where the laws of physics made being smart easier, (I was thinking an alternate universe with different physics.) and he jokingly accused me of breaking into his office and reading his notes, then changed the subject. I finally understood his reaction when A Fire Upon the Deep came out.

[Sarcastr0]

I've tried his other books and don't like them nearly as much.

Fire was his opus.

[Brett Bellmore]

It was, I agree. Nothing else he's written quite matches it. I've liked his other works, but they're not on the same level.

Have you read Peter Hamilton's Night's Dawn trilogy? If you liked A Fire Upon the Deep, you might like that, too.

[Krayt]

Someone once told him he could never write the story that became A Fire Upon the Deep. He didn't say why but it seemed obvious.

**** partial spoiler, but honestly this is nothing not in the prologue ****
A creature with functionally infinite computational power and genius simply could not be defeated by any mortals. How could anyone outthink it? His solution makes sense without violating that.

[SRG2]

Hamilton writes overblown space opera - though it's not bad. Years ago Harry Harrison asked me if I wouldn't mind reading and reviewing (under his name) the first of the Night's Dawn series (really stupid title) because he'd read the first three or four pages and couldn't even...

[Brett Bellmore]

Harrison obviously doesn't like space opera, (Star Smashing Galaxy Rangers!) but it's a genre, and Hamilton writes good instances of the genre.

I suppose this is a good opportunity to plug The Stainless Steel Rat series by Harrison. And, come to think of it, his "A Trans-Atlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!" is a good example of the sort of (Alternate) historical fiction we were talking about a few days ago.

[SRG2]

Harry did like space opera when not too operatic but there's a reason he parodied it. FWIW - I may have said this before - when Mote in God's Eye came out, my pals at Oxford's SF group were raving. I was not. I proved my point by reading an extract out and asking people to guess where it came from. Everyone thought it was Harry Harrison, most guessed from Bill the Galactic Hero, and one or two even "identified" the section it came from. Jerry Pournelle did improve over time.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Night’s Dawn is interesting but I think it’s the worst of his series—definitely betrays some immature tendencies that he got under control as he kept writing. (It didn’t help that the edition I read had a shocking amount of typos for a professionally published work.) Also interesting to see him build a setting before he developed his obsession with teleportation.

I read Salvation (the first book of his newest series) in one sitting. The sequels didn’t have quite the same magic, but overall a very good time.

[jb]

A Fire Upon the Deep is great. I like most of his other work as well, but A Fire Upon the Deep is just so so good. (Although a bit of a challenge for many people to get into--stick with it, it's worth it!)

Vaguely related, I also like Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time for the way it imagines an "alien" species and brings us into that perspective.

[Jokibif0]

I've read quite a bit by Adrian Tchaikovsky (the "Children of" books, the Final Architecture, other stuff) and found it all really great.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Fire Upon the Deep is really great. My one complaint is that an important part of the plot depends on characters being ignorant of information that the reader already knows, which got a bit tedious at times. But definitely well worth reading in spite of that.

I never finished the sequel.

[arch1]

True Names by the same (alas recently deceased) author.

[Frank Drackman]

"E for Effort" is a science fiction novelette by American writer T. L. Sherred, first published in 1947, about the consequences of a time viewer, a machine that projects images of the past. It has been reprinted many times, including in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame

[Stepped Reckoner]

Neuromancer, by William Gibson. Duh. Bits and pieces of it have been being made into hit movies for years (Ghost In The Shell, The Matrix, and the Blade Runner sequel, to name a few); but the original book, a moving, sharp as a knife, action-packed meditation on what it means to be human instead of machine, is still better than all of them put together. Imagine Tron rewritten as a brilliantly tense heist plot, by Robert Harris at his Silence Of The Lambs peak.

Startide Rising, by David Brin. Unputdownable; inspiring; so good it will stick in your mind for years. And so, so, so, so, so much better than his cruddy later books.

Lord of Light, by Roger Zelazny. Unputdownable. Endlessly copied. Never credited. Also by him, Creatures Of Light And Darkness, and The Last Defender Of Camelot. (Everyone talks about Zelazny's Amber books because of their pioneering, endlessly copied multiverse setting, but they are really not his best; only the first one, Nine Princes In Amber, is really good, and those that follow cannot fulfill the first one's promise and decline sharply in quality. In all these ways, Zelazny's Amber series is very remiscent of Stephen King's later Dark Tower series.)

[Brett Bellmore]

I've long thought that Startide Rising would make a fantastic SF movie trilogy. Instead which Brin novel do they make into a movie?

The Postman. Sheesh.

[Armchair]

Oh, I enjoyed the Postman as a movie. Was it a masterpiece? No. But it was amusing. As was Waterworld, in the same vein.

[Brett Bellmore]

But Startide Rising would have been glorious.

One thing I'm hopeful with the rise of generative AI is that soon enough it ought to be feasible to turn novels into motion pictures with relatively small budgets compared to the insane sums they throw at things like Lord of the Rings.

So we might start seeing popular novelists issuing their novels as motion pictures. Think about Repairman Jack, for instance, as a motion picture, not just The Keep.

[Armchair]

Startide Rising did have an option, and a partial screenplay. But...

It would be REALLY hard as a movie. There's too much there, the characters too dissimilar, and not enough background is in the US culture to quickly assimilate it.

I'm just imagining these CGI dolphins "talking" on the screen as the main characters, and it's already a disaster in my head.

[David Nieporent]

Everyone loves to bash Costner's Postman, and I am not carrying any water for it, but Brin, ironically, liked it.

[Brett Bellmore]

It wasn't a terrible movie, don't get me wrong.

My complaint is that Brin writes glorious SF, but how often does that end up filmed? No, they go with something like the Postman, which wasn't really SF at all.

I just wish more of the really great SF novels got made into movies, and it saddens me a bit when they pick a novel by a noted SF writer to make into a movie, and pick one of his non-SF works.

[Carl_N_Brown]

I liked the movies "The Postman" and "Waterworld".
No wildly enthusiastic, but I liked them as being different.

[The Folding Attorney]

I read through a pre-release copy of The Postman while visiting my then-future-spouse's campus and thought the book was pretty good. The movie version was meh, but at least not quite as bad as Starship Troopers.

[Old Smokin' Egg]

I'll add Zelazny's "Doorways in the Sand" to the recommended list. And I'll concur with Stepped Reckoner re. the Amber series; indeed, for the second tranche of five books, "decline sharply" is an understatement—either Zelazny developed significant cognitive impairment between the first five and the second, or, as I suspect, the second bout of five was ghostwritten, with some very light editorial supervision by Zelazny himself.

[Brett Bellmore]

It's pretty common for the quality in a series to drop after the first couple of books. For instance, I absolutely loved Philip Jose Farmer's The World of Tiers. Enough so that I bought the entire series.

The last two books were dreck, (Especially the second to last!) and he'd casually killed off some of the major characters, and made the latter books all about a side character in the first ones.

That's what I loved about Dickson's Dragon Knight series: They were actually getting better as they went along.

[SRG2]

PJF drecked his Riverworld series as well. They became bloated.

[r]

See also the last two books in the Hitchhiker's five book trilogy.

[Jokibif0]

I'd add /Isle of the Dead/ by Zelazny.

[Jokibif0]

I really liked the second book of Gibson's Sprawl trilogy, /Count Zero/, as well.

[Brett Bellmore]

The above was my SF recommendation. In terms of fantasy,

Also absolutely anything by Bujold. But particularly her Challion series, and the Sharing Knife books. (It's my head canon that the latter occurs in the distant future of the Challion series...)

Also anything by Lord Dunsany.

The Dragon Knight series, by Gordon Dickson. Cut tragically short by his death, sadly, never got to read what it was building towards.

Of course Silverlock by John Meyers Meyers. Get the volume with the Silverlock Companion if you can, you won't regret it. The Moon's Fire Eating Daughter is also good, but not as complex.

And, finally, a classic: Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice, by James Branch Cabell.

[Dan Schiavetta]

The Kin of Ata Are Waiting for You by Dorothy Bryant.

[Armchair]

Ouch. A lot of "golden oldies" there. Not bad, mind you. But fairly obvious and well read.

Focusing on newer stuff.

"How to Become a Dark Lord and Die Trying". -Django Wexler. A mix of a classic fantasy + the dark twist + Re-Zero + a healthy bit of exposition ala Pratchett in the footnotes. A solid, amusing combination.

Wexler's been a decent author before, but this was solidly good. Looking forward to the sequel. My only real criticism here is that as a male author, he does his main character's female sexuality from a male perspective.

[Armchair]

I suppose a bit of description is called for.

For the last 200 subjective years, our heroine has been fighting to save the Kingdom from being overrun by the monsters of the Dark Lord. Summoned from another world, she fights, then dies (or is murdered, or tortured then murdered), only to be reborn again right where she started, in the same exact time she started. This is her 50th or 60th run through...and she tired of it.

So this time, instead of following her kindly Merlin/Gandolf figure as she rises from the pool, she bashes him on the head and decides to try the other side for a change....

[Brett Bellmore]

Sort of an inverted Andre Norton? I read a lot of 'his' books as a kid, and enjoyed them, but always thought there was something weirdly off about 'his' male protagonists.

It all made sense when I found out "he" was actually she.

[SRG2]

You will recall when James Tiptree jr. came along and people like Robert Silverberg were sure that “he” had to have been male because no woman could write like that!

Silverberg's Lord Valentine's Castle series I thought was an excellent fantasy series.

[Brett Bellmore]

I am blessedly free of any illusions that women can't write. McMaster Bujold is, after all, one of my favorite authors, and wow, can she ever write: You'll start reading space opera, and five books in you'll realize she's got you reading romance novels! And you won't really mind...

But though Andre Norton wrote some great juvenile SF, (The Zero Stone books, Tree Lords of Iften, the Witch World books.) her male protagonists were still just a bit "off". She didn't get male psychology the way Bujold does.

[SRG2]

FWIW I always thought Sheri Tepper was damn good - the Gate to Women's Country, Grass, etc.

[Brett Bellmore]

Sure, I loved the True Game trilogy.

[Armchair]

I suppose if we're going to go for gross overgeneralizations....

Most male SF/Fantasy authors (and many female ones) ignore or gloss over sexual relation issues. Sanderson, Tolkein, Jordan, etc. For many of these authors, the female form exists in an abstract, but certainly shouldn't be discussed. On occasion, you do get a male SF/Fantasy author that describes a sexual relationship occurring, and typically it's described roughly as "Wham, Bam, Thank you ma'am, we're done!"

On the other hand, you'll get a decent number of female SF/Fantasy authors that will, shall we say, lovingly describe the relationship going on, in fluid prose, about the longing and lust and gracious descriptions of the various organs and body parts.

Now if Wexler hadn't described the relationships going on at all, it could go either way. Again, both female and male authors in the SF/Fantasy genre can ignore it. But Wexler went more in the "Wham, Bam" mentality with his female lead. And having read enough of the other side, it was disjarring enough to realize "Oh, a guy wrote this".

[hobie]

The Time Traveler's Wife - very thought provoking

[Armchair]

As for Sci-Fi, again focusing on newer stuff.

"Freelancers of Neptune" Jacob Holo.

Holo has come back on own as a new author, after co-writing the the Gordian Protocol series with David Weber (also nice in the first couple books). A nice little swashbuckling adventure, with good world building and character development.

[ZT]

Dragonsbane by Barbara Hambly is still a favorite standalone. The followup trilogy is ok.

The Sun Wolf and Starhawk Trilogy, also by Hambly, is a wonderful sword and sorcery trilogy. Loved it to pieces.

The Killing Star by Pellegrino and Zebrowski is always a fun hard scifi read too, especially if you're a Titanic aficionado.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Sort of related to last week’s theme: Timeline by Michael Crichton. Really most of Crichton is good. Not particularly vast in scope or deep in lore and he doesn’t really have well-developed characters, but fun reads overall.

[The Folding Attorney]

I can't agree. For me Crichton's stories are "man messes with nature, nature gets man in the end." There are hints of that in Andromeda Strain, and it sort of goes on from there. His stories always seem to be about hubris.

[Brett Bellmore]

I must confess that lately I've been binge reading the light novel series, "Campfire Cooking in Another World With my Absurd Skill".

Aside from enjoying the plot, it's inspired a lot of culinary experimentation!

[MN2828]

Try the Sten Chronicles by Chris Bunch and Allan Cole. A great many descriptions of high-end cooking by one of the main characters -- no recipe book, however.

[tennvol]

I really enjoyed the series of books by James S. A. Corey starting with Leviathan Wakes, upon which the TV series The Expanse is based.

[GKHoff]

Ditto that.

[ducksalad]

Any recommendations for what could be called "engineering fiction":
sci-fi that stays within accepted physics and the bounds of what is, at least in principle, feasible?

A recent example would be The Martian by Andy Weir.
Older classic examples would be The Menace from Earth by Heinlein or A Fall of Moondust by Clarke.

[Brett Bellmore]

Robert Forward did a lot of that.

[SRG2]

Sadly I don't think he was a very interesting writer.

[Brett Bellmore]

You had to be reading them for the engineering, I guess. In that case he was a very interesting writer.

I've tried writing SF myself, and can you say "expository lump"? Yes, I expect you can. I would probably make half of a good hard SF writer, but sadly only half.

[SRG2]

Yup - the engineering was kinda interesting as engineering, but I had enough friends who were scientists and engineers that I could get all that from Sunday nights at the pub.

FWIW I can write SF short stories but not novels. I lack the patience.

[tennvol]

The James S. A. Corey books certainly fit that description from the standpoint of human abilities.

[Brett Bellmore]

How about The Silicon Man? Not everything Platt has written is hard SF, but this one's as hard as it gets.

[jb]

Most hard Sci Fi tries to hew to this principle, although various amounts of speculation is always involved. The spiritual predecessor to The Martian is obviously the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson.

I actually like Three Body Problem from this angle. It's a mix of incremental development of our current levels of human technology plus a lot of "what if" in terms of exploring what more advanced technologies may be capable of, if still mostly bound to our current understanding of the laws of physics.

[Krayt]

Star Carrier series, though intended as space battles types of stories, has a background similar to Three Body Problem. Spoiler for that, insofar as it is similar, but not for Star Carrier as that’s how it’s kicked off.

Aliens come in. “Hey, knock it off with AI and DNA modification and a few other things. That’s dangerous stuff, is our experience, and we forbid it. We will kill you if you choose to continue.

Humanity: We choose to continue.

Fun ensues.

[ducksalad]

I’d say the border between hard sci-fi and my so-called engineering fiction is usually hand-waving some faster-than-light travel (or even less realistically, time travel).

So engineering fiction is either in the solar system or on generation ships, and by reciprocity doesn’t have aliens showing up via FTL either.

[jb]

It's sometimes the case that hard Sci Fi tries to bring in some form of FTL travel (and need to do some work to justify the theoretical science behind it), but a lot of books being discussed here do not. The Alistair Reynolds books mentioned elsewhere and Children of of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky are good examples of hard Sci Fi where a good propulsion system is enough to allow for some interstellar travel without necessarily needing to fall back on generation ships.

The Expanse series is an interesting example of something that straddles the two. It's mostly in solar system, but also has instant travel portals.

[Brett Bellmore]

I recall a while back a novel, (Wish I could recall the author!) that had a galaxy wide network of interstellar trains, essentially; The 'rails' were bi-directional laser beams so high in power that they gravitationally self-focused, and the train would get around by reflecting a tiny fraction of the light back through the rail, and so could accelerate to high relativistic speeds without having to carry fuel for more than reaching the local rail.

The concept didn't violate any laws of physics I could see, and indeed something vaguely similar is currently being discussed as a way of launching interstellar craft.

[Brett Bellmore]

Despite the plot holes that really irritated me, Avatar was actually pretty good hard SF; The interstellar ship was NOT FTL, and was actually based on a realistic antimatter powered starship design. I loved the way you could just SEE that there was some kind of room temperature superconductor present, just from the topography; Arches of rock following magnetic fields, big floating rocks pinned in the same way I've demonstrated with chunks of LN temperature superconductor.

Even the plot holes related to narrative goals, essentially providing reasons for the humans to be doing evil things so you'd cheer the natives killing them. I like to think the writers knew how stupid they were.

[Nelson]

Avatar was Fern Gully with a much better budget.

[ducksalad]

Everyone, thanks for the recommendations. I'll definitely pick up some of these.

[Harvey Mosley]

"Primordial Threat" by MA Rothman seems to me to fit your criteria. But I'm neither a scientist nor an engineer so it is possible that it really isn't feasible. A good story though!

[Stepped Reckoner]

If you like "engineering science fiction" I would recommend The Wailing Asteroid by Murray Leinster.

Imagine the main character of The Martian, except instead of being an astronaut stranded on Mars he's a practicing engineer who mysteriously begins having dreams of alien technology, and sets out, in classic engineer fashion, to try to build it.

Leinster was normally a hack, but every so often he would have a terrific story like The Wailing Asteroid, or the much more famous "A Logic Named Joe" (arguably the first story about the Internet).

[Alan Vanneman]

"Vorak of Kolnap" by Alan Vanneman. Simply the best.

[SRG2]

I’m generally going to stick to more (relatively) modern recommendations.

Iain M Banks – Against a Dark Background, Consider Phlebas, and most of the other Culture novels. (One or two are weak).

Alastair Reynolds – all his Revelation Space novels. I recently finished the “Prefect Dreyfus” trilogy – Aurora Rising, Elysium Fire, Machine Vendetta – and they are brilliant.

Charles Stross – most of his stuff except the “Merchant Princes” series. His Laundry series, particularly the early ones, are very entertaining.

Similar in some respects to the Laundry series is Ben Aaronovitch’s “Rivers of London” series – also reminiscent of some of Rob Holdstock’s novels.

Do I really need to mention Terry Pratchett? His Discworld series is the funniest fantasy series I think ever.

I will allow one older series recommendations – Brian Aldiss’s “Helliconia” series, because I was at a table with him and a couple of other friends and acquaintances at a con in Birmingham UK when he came up with the idea. Good world-building series.

[ducksalad]

I knew a guy who use to buy music CDs based (in part) on how many minutes of music he got per dollar.

That's how I feel about Alastair Reynolds. You get lot of reasonably entertaining words per dollar spent on the book.

[Sarcastr0]

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty.

2024 Hugo Award for Best Novel.

Fun, but not too much more. And has a bit of off the rails bits. Not going to go on my carefully curated bookshelf but a good time.

[Sarcastr0]

A Prayer for the Crown-Shy is a 2022 solarpunk novella written by Becky Chambers.

Dex the tea monk and Splendid Speckled Mosscap the robot begin a road trip across the moon called Panga. They travel to various human populations asking "What do people need?" Along the way, they meet a range of different characters, including Dex’s family, who all offer different answers to the question. By the end of the book, Dex and Mosscap both realise that they don't know what they need but they want to work out the answer to that question together.
----------
It is a book where very little happens, which is fine because it is so short and so cozy.

[Brett Bellmore]

Have you read Stanislaw Lem's Cyberiad?

[SRG2]

^^^ +1

[Sarcastr0]

I have not. And I do like Lem.

Read his "The Invincible" for book club. Off the beaten path for that time and genre - competence does not avail, and very Eastern European.

[GMUSL Alum]

The Will of the Many by James Islington is the best new epic fantasy I've read in years.

[Mr. Bumble]

“Looking Backward: 2000-1887": by Edward Bellamy published in 1888,
The “utopian” future is examined by a man who has been awakened in the year 2000 after a 113 year “sleep”.

[chilicook]

Two SF Series:
Connie Willis, Oxford Time Travel series: To say nothing of the dog, Firewatch, Doomsday Book, Blackout and All Clear.

Kage Baker's The Company time travel series;
In the Garden of Iden (1997)
Sky Coyote (1999)
Mendoza in Hollywood (2000) (published in the UK as At the Edge of the West)
The Graveyard Game (2001)
The Life of the World to Come (2004)
The Children of the Company (2005)
The Machine's Child (2006)
The Sons of Heaven (2007)
The Empress of Mars (2009) (novel version)
Not Less than Gods (2010)

She also had a second series, Fantasy, The Anvil of the World
The Anvil of the World (2003)
The House of the Stag (2008) (Prequel to The Anvil of the World)
The Bird of the River (2010)

[Sarcastr0]

Lets have a hater thread.

What is a popular sci-fi book that you don't like?

Lord of Light would be one of mine - I like Zelazny a lot and I like the idea, but I found the execution not great. To be fair, I find nonlinear stuff to be a big swing that rarely connects.

Another would be Neverwhere. It's a novelization of the TV show, so maybe the show is better, but I found the main character to be a super annoying drip. In my book club what you thought of him fall largely down gender lines, which was interesting.

And finally The Culture series. Well executed; kept me occupied. But in the end kinda one note. Maybe 2 notes. There's a reason Star Trek doesn't spend a lot of time outside Starfleet.

[SRG2]

The Culture series.

Oh foul heretic! ????

I find there’s a richness to it and the novels are like passing through the worlds, and the stories do not matter as much. Like Bruckner – you don’t listen to Bruckner for the tunes.

I mentioned “Mote in God’s Eye” above. I have never been a fan of Niven – the books or the man, though “Ringworld” was good

[Sarcastr0]

Never got to Niven, so I can't call you a heretic on that one I'm afraid.

[chilicook]

Some of this may depend on when you read it. I was teenager in the '70's and in my early 20's in the late 70's and early 80's and absolutely devoured several series; Foundation by Asimov, the Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison; Retief of the CDT by Keith Laumer; and lots by Niven. At the time I thought these were wonderful. Nowadays, they seem very dated and almost formulaic; some of which may be that I am more sophisticated reader now than when I was 15 or 20; some of which may be that the books were 'of a time' and relevant to that time (Retief in particular was parody, to some extent of our involvement in Vietnam). Or the Stainless Steel Rat series.

[SRG2]

I think Retief was more about the Cold War, particularly all the tactical diplomatic skirmishes

[arch1]

I really enjoyed the short story Nightfall by Asimov, though it is (or was) seemingly the consensus #1 (like Stairway to Heaven in both respects, so shoot me).

Less well known: In Hiding, a novella by Wilmar H. Shiras.

[Hugo S. Cunningham]

>I really enjoyed the short story Nightfall by Asimov

Ditto.

I was much less impressed by the book-length expansion Asimov brought out 49 years later: it seemed overstuffed and slow-moving.

Citing "Nightfall," I once suggested on a Usenet group that it might be fun for a metropolitan area to schedule a blackout every 20 years or so, allowing city folk for the first time to appreciate the Milky Way and thousands of low-magnitude stars. A commenter who sounded like a power-plant technician or engineer responded that I was out of my [expletive deleted] mind: safely bringing down and later restoring a regional power grid was not a simple matter of flipping a switch.

[Brett Bellmore]

When I was a child in elementary school, the teacher discovered that I was terribly nearsighted, (I'd only been able to read the blackboard while I was in the front row.) and I got sent home for my parents to get me some glasses.

The first night after I got my glasses, I went out and looked up, and saw stars for the very first time in my life. I did not, so far as I can tell, go insane. Though I did get very space-crazy, common enough for children growing up during the Apollo program.

It was also a bit of a revelation to discover that people could actually see individual leaves on trees from a distance. Children growing up with bad vision are totally clueless about it until they get their first pair of glasses... Then their whole world changes.

[Lee Moore]

The Mote is an excellent story, so long as you can look past the tediously unimaginative Galactic Empire and the wooden (human) characters. The Moties are great.

[Internet sloth]

Harry Potter, it seemed too much like grade school, and could never get into it

[Sarcastr0]

I like the first book. But I did find it got less gripping as the series progressed, and got longer and ~darker~ and more actiony.

[Rev. O.T. Medal]

I liked the whole series but agree that the last 3 or 4 books were too long -- JKR evidently became too successful and powerful to be edited.

As for Sloth's comment, the Potter books are definitely pitched to a younger audience. You can get a more sophisticated, but still YA, take on a school for magic in The Scholomance Trilogy by Naomi Novik. Or, read The Magicians Series by Lev Grossman, which is intended for adults. Grossman mixes the trope of a school for magic (in this case university for 20 somethings) with sex, drugs, fall out from childhood traumas, the summoning of gods (evil and otherwise), and a portal to a Narnia-like alternate world.

[Brett Bellmore]

"JKR evidently became too successful and powerful to be edited."

You can see that with Heinlein's last few books, too.

[Stepped Reckoner]

And Stephen King's last forty books or so.

Everything after Different Seasons and the original, shorter version of The Stand.

[LawTalkingGuy]

It really depends on whether you started reading it as a kid or early teenager. If you grew up with it got excited about each new release its probably different than going into it years later. A few older people probably got into it because it was something their kids or younger siblings really enjoyed and they got caught up in the magic so to speak

[Noscitur a sociis]

For whatever it’s worth, I read these for the first time as an adult within the last few years, and really liked them. The last couple books in particular were more mature than I’d expected, and the last book was a lot weirder than I would have thought the last book in a series like this would be. If you’re a fantasy fan who thought Harry Potter was beneath you, as I was, you might want to check it out.

Also the Harry Potter video game is pretty great.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Thomas Covenant.

I made it maybe a quarter of the way through the first book before the combination of a loathsome main character, incredibly boring world, and cookiecutter plot had me on the verge of giving up. My copy had a foreward from Donaldson so I read it in desperation hoping that it might offer me some insight insight into why I should keep going: instead it was just him patting himself on the back for being enough of a genius to write the book (and, if I remember correctly, comparing himself to Wagner).

That was the last time I read anything he wrote, and I don’t plan to start again.

[Sarcastr0]

Oh lord that's a good one. Though his star has fallen fast and not many know him these days I feel like. Something something edgy 80s.

I read that in high school. Hated it then.
Read some Donaldson short stories in law school. You are missing nothing.

[Brett Bellmore]

I slogged through it from end to end, just because I was reading so much, and had to keep the habit fed. But, yeah, man what an unlikeable protagonist.

[Sarcastr0]

It takes a lot for a high schooler to get turned off from such a vivid world. But it was just unpleasant to read (though the fact that I do still recall it does speak well of the craft, if not the choices in how it was deployed).

[SRG2]

Yup. :I read the first trilogy because it had been so highly recommended but nope. As you say, unsympathetic hero, and Donaldson had really no idea how to build a world. There's a conceit, that a world exists and a Tolkien or a GRRM is an historian of that world. But Donaldson didn't put the effort in to create the world. He simply pulled stuff out of his arse as needed

[Toranth]

Augh. What a terrible reminder. I hated the Thomas Covenant books. I read the first two trilogies because I had also read the Mordant's Need duology (Mirror of her Dreams, and A Man Rides Through) which were pretty good fantasy. I recommend those, and Donaldson's two short story collections (Daughter of Regals, Reave the Just).

The Gap series was like a sci-fi version of Thomas Covenant. Avoid.

[Rossami]

Most of David Weber's Honor Harrington series. The first few books were great examples of military sci fi but the series rapidly devolved into repetition, tedium and embarassingly non-military behavior.

Here Be Sexist Vampires by Suzanne Wright. It started with an okay premise, then promptly lost it.

Second Contact by JD Austin (aka Joshua Dann). It's either the worst book I've ever read or a terrific parody. Sadly, I suspect the former.

The Worthing Saga by Orson Scott Card. I truly love his other work. This one was just bad.

I have to disagree on the Thomas Covenant series, though. They were deeply disturbing to me but I finally figured out that even though Covenant is the main character and narrator, he's not the hero. It's not a fun series but it's one that I've found myself thinking about many times over the years.

[jimc5499]

Bingo on Weber.

[ducksalad]

Gonna say it:

Dune

It’s not outright bad, but I don’t see what all the fuss is about. The writing varies from pedestrian to actual poor grammar. The plot and world-building are good enough if you’re trapped in an airport or the in-laws and need something to read, but nothing profound or particularly original.

[Sarcastr0]

Hell yeah, this is what the hater thread is for!

[Bwaaah]

LOL

[SRG2]

My old school librarian put it this way: Dune was written by someone full of ideas who didn't know how to write, and the sequels were written by someone who'd learned how to write but had run out of ideas.

Best regarded as a YA book, IMO.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Very true (although I think the learning must have happened after Dune Messiah…).

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Thank you! Dune is not good.

[Sarcastr0]

Accelerando by Charles Stross. Oy was this a slog. And smug too.

[jb]

First, I agree with SRG2 that the Culture series is great and that you are a blasphemer. I agree the books are a bit uneven, but I like that they're relatively standalone and engaging. The science-y parts can be thought-provoking. Most importantly, they do the thing I like most about Sci Fi: use the frame of new technologies to make us think non-technological assumptions in our own society.

I'll personally didn't love Neuromancer in particular and most of Gibson's writing in general. The concepts are interesting but I didn't enjoy reading it at all. I did like Difference Engine more; maybe Bruce Sterling's influence helped out. (Barely related, the thought of
"primitive" computers reminds me of Souls in the Great Machine by Sean McMullen, which I liked a lot!)

[Stepped Reckoner]

Sarcastr0 hating on Lord of Light... Well, now at least I know why our worldviews are so incompatible. One of us is wrong.

Of course, we're talking about the guy whose reaction to the comity and trucekeeping that was prevailing (for once) in this thread was "Lets have a hater thread!" Nothing could be more on brand.

[Bwaaah]

I give him kudos for this. The whole discussion is strikingly lacking in the kind of ugliness that typically gets injected into VC discussions. Helpful recommendations here include heartfelt critiques, as do the counter-recommendations in this branch of the discussion. It even appears to me that counter-recommendations lean toward works for which commenters seem to have genuine affections, high expectations, and in some measure, disappointment.

I find the whole discussion, including the misleadingly labeled "hater" sub-thread, to be interesting and pleasant. (Did I say pleasant? YES!!!)

So kudos to Eugene for coming up with this kind of topic. And kudos to Sarc for expanding on that paradigm, helpfully, I think. And kudos to y'all for your interesting, good-spirited comments!

[Sarcastr0]

😀

[Stepped Reckoner]

Well said

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

I don't hate Robert Heinlein, but I think he's massively overrated by many people. He's just okay.

My personal vote for worst published sf/fantasy author ever published would be Anne McCaffrey.

[Krayt]

Starting The Lensmen series. For some reason the Kindle threepack for the first stories was $3. The price was right. Wish me luck.

[Brett Bellmore]

Keep in mind that he knew he was writing nonsense on stilts, and was just having fun with it. Anyone who reads the Lensmen or Masters of the Vortex and thinks Doc Smith was being serious just doesn't get it.

And now for something completely different:

Randal Garrett's SF pastiche collection, Takeoff! and Takeoff, Too!

Absolutely dead on parodies of various SF and fantasy writers, and he really nails them, while dialing their styles up to 11. Including, yes, "Backstage Lensman".

I love pastiches, the one time in HS I got accused by a teacher of plagiarism it was because I'd perpetrated a pastiche in writing a boring report. Had to take it all the way to the Principal, but I eventually prevailed on account of very carefully copying the style, but never the actual words.

[CaptainQuack]

SF: Robert A. Heinlein’s StarShip Troopers and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
Fan: Sir Terry Pratchett's Discworld series.

[Stepped Reckoner]

You have to add a third Heinlein to that list: Stranger In A Strange Land.

That way you can read the sometime bible of right-wing scifi, the sometime bible of libertarian scifi, and the sometime bible of left-wing scifi. All conveniently written by the same talented guy!

[Nick W B]

The Expanse by James Corey
The Corporation Wars by Ken Macleod
Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Murderbot by Martha Wells
Blindsight by Peter Watts

[GKHoff]

I second the Murderbot series by Martha Wells.

[Nelson]

Agreed. Quick, easy reads. Wells' City of Bones is a great standalone book.

[Carl_N_Brown]

I have fondness for the books I read between 5th and 10th grade.
“Not This August”, Cyril Kornbluth
“Nineteen Eighy-Four” and “Animal Farm”, George Orwell
“Brave New World Revisited”, Aldous Huxley
“Fahrenheit 451”, Ray Bradbury
“Anthem”, Ayn Rand
"Out Of the Deeps" ("The Kraken Wakes"), John Wyndham

[Krayt]

Chicken and egg. Most of those were selected for that age because they are accessible but teach valuable warnings.

[SRG2]

I have fondness for the books I read between 5th and 10th grade

Old line: the golden age of SF is what you were reading when you were 15.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Brilliant shout out on C.M. Kornbluth. One of the absolute best of all time!

[Stepped Reckoner]

Hear, hear.

And everyone should read Kornbluth's "Two Dooms." The series "The Man In The High Castle" was supposedly based on Philip K. Dick's novel, but I am certain that the series drew a lot of inspiration from Kornbluth's novella.

[MN2828]

The Murderbot series (Martha Wells) is sneakily deep.
Big thumbs up for Lois McMaster Bujold -- the Vorkosigan tales are great but also the Pen/Desdemona series (which are all basically novellas)

Also a fan of Simon Green's Nightside series

[Krayt]

Speaking of science fiction, this is something Batman might do, or a Robert Heinlein story. Or Eugene from Walking Dead. Or Mission Impossible. Or a James Bond. Well, you get the picture.

Hundreds of Hezbollah pagers exploded in Lebanon, some nut casualties are believed.

[Rev. O.T. Medal]

Here is a random and partial list of SF/Fantasy worth reading.

The short stories of Ray Bradbury. All of his collections are good. Start with “The Illustrated Man.”

Everything by Neil Gaiman. I particularly like Good Omens” – Gaiman’s hysterical collaboration with Terry Pratchett about the anti-Christ, the four horsemen of the apocalypse, prophecies, witch finders, and the end of the world; and “Neverwhere” – where the protagonist falls into the fantastical realms of “London Below,” which overlaps the London subway system.

(As I was getting ready to post, I saw that someone was hating on “Neverwhere” because the protagonist is a “drip.” The story offers such an interesting world, plot, and collection of secondary characters that the understandable ineptitude of the fish-out-of-water lead should not be disqualifying. But if you want Gaiman fiction where the protagonist is a badass you can check out the Sandman stories, as graphic novels and audio books, or can read the adventures of Shadow Moon in “American Gods.”)

Erin Morgenstern’s “The Starless Sea” and “The Night Circus.” These are beautifully written books.

“Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. This book is weird and dark. But it is also fascinating and unique.

Robin Hobb’s Elderlings tales. Think of them as four separate, interrelated series of novels. The first series, the Farseer Trilogy, beginning with “Assassin’s Apprentice” is a good swords & magic coming of age story. The second series, which can be read as a stand-alone trilogy is the Liveship Traders. This trilogy, beginning with “Ship of Magic,” is great – sentient sailing ships; detailed world building on the life cycles of dragons; fantastic character arcs, especially for the leading female characters; ruminations on slavery, serpents, politics and pirates.

“Station Eleven” -- Emily St. John Mandel’s tale of the onset and aftermath of a population destroying global pandemic. They made it into a TV mini-series, which was excellent. But the book is even better.

“The Dog Stars” by Peter Heller – another fine, modern take on surviving after most of humanity is wiped out.

[SRG2]

"Perdido Street Station" - excellent recommendation. Boy can he write!

[NOVA Lawyer]

I'll give it a try. I started Mieville's The City & The City, but didn't get more than 20 pages as I found the writing stilted and the dialogue pretty awful. I know he was just setting the scene/world, but I didn't like his sentence by sentence writing at all. Maybe I abandoned it too early as he, obviously, has a huge following.

[SRG2]

I didn't think "The City and the City" read like typical Mieville - I think he was trying for something else.

[Nelson]

Robin Hobb, absolutely! Probably my favorite fantasy series of all time is the Farseer trilogy.

[Nelson]

Although I often thought that she should give her poor protagonist a break every once in a while. He was probably the most abused protagonist ever. I can't tell if she loved him or hated him, but it made his story so much more compelling.

[SRG2]

Back to the old days - for humour, Keith Laumer's "Retief" stories and Robert Sheckley in general.

[Eeyore 2]

For thought-provoking sci-fi, Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice (and its sequels). This won lots of awards when it came out about 10 years ago.

For a fun cross between fantasy and space-opera sci-fi--for those with a long attention span as the series is up to about 15 books now--Glynn Stewart's Starship Mage series. Most of his other stuff is more hard-core sci-fi, and also good.

[jb]

Ancillary Justice is a very good read. Fairly dense, but as you say, thought provoking in a number of dimensions.

[Bob from Ohio]

Lord of the Rings

OG of all fantasy. But Frodo is the least interesting major character.

[NOVA Lawyer]

Absolutely agree Lord of the Rings deserves a mention, no matter how ubiquitously read and appreciated.

"But Frodo is the least interesting major character."

Agreed. And the movie trilogy fully captured this.

I read it in my teens, so no telling what I would think now. I doubt, though, I'd have patience for a lot of the longer descriptions of the setting. In this sense, the (moving) picture was worth well more than a thousand words.

[Hugo S. Cunningham]

)> “But Frodo is the least interesting major character.”

I have heard it suggested that Frodo's normal (might I say "human"?) dimensions provide an anchor for all the super-beings that fill out the LOTR epic. Without a Frodo character as a foundation, the great heroes of the Silmarillion were less engaging.

[Swede425]

Armor by John Steakley.

We are
What we do
When it counts

[Purple Martin]

I read and enjoyed Malka Older's The Centenal Cycle last year (centenal is a created word, designating a cohort of 100 people)—a political cyberpunk technothriller trilogy set in a global/local political structure enabled by a logical if unlikely extension of Google/Meta-type technology. Think All the President’s Men meets Neuromancer, with a surprising amount of legal-world action that might interest VC readers.

It takes what could have been an Internet of Things-based dystopia (and aren’t we all tired of dystopias?) and changes it to it to a morally neutral, fully pervasive collecting-everything-with-all-info-fact-checked/instantly-accessible-everywhere-to-everyone non-governmental entity as an assumption underlying and necessary to the plot. That organization, calledInformation, is recognizable as a capable/benevolent future evolution of Google where both Don’t Be Evil and the dream-tech work (yes, it requires near-Tolkien-level willful suspension of disbelief).

Based on your preference , you choose to create or be a citizen of an existing 100-person nano-country—a centenal—which by citizen-vote, usually chooses to ally with a Nation consisting of as many centenals, world-wide, as wish to abide by a given set centenal-specific governmental theory and laws.

Get past the conventions of the technothriller genre, and the global societal political part is interesting, especially the first book, Infocracy. It fleshes out life in dozens of different such nations (out of millions worldwide): technocratic; technophobic; theocratic; authoritarian; libertarian; libertine; ascetic; communitarian; militarian; ethnicity-based; geography-bound; globally dispersed; dear leader personality cult; 100-member pure democracy; single appointed-or-elected representative republic.

Don’t like how your Nation or micro-nation treats you? In a version of Ilya Somin’s foot voting, there are low-friction ways for an individual to instantly swap to any of millions of others, and each centenal can switch to a different Nation alliance during global elections every five years.

Global power in that world is based on how many centenals vote to join you in either in a single-Nation government, or in federations of Nations with shared principles but different implementations. Most of the political plot is based on rivalries among a dozen global-power super-states preparing for the five-year elections (managed and results guaranteed by benevolent, capable, future-Google), in which the winner receives specific global powers and responsibilities for the next five years. Since it’s the only time centenals can switch alliances, alliance-recruiting/switching drives the plot.

As to a review, Infocracy (book 1) is inventive world-building supporting a pretty good politics/elections story. Unfortunately, the thriller aspects start sending the plot downhill in book two, to a crash-and-burn in book three. In a problem not uncommon to writers starting with an assumption of a trilogy (to sell three books instead of one), the trilogy's total words could be cut in half—potentially resulting in one very good book.

I might re-read Infocracy to get a little deeper into the political/legal nuances of micro-nation domestic governance/foreign relations, and recruiting foot-voters...but doubt I'll bother with the other two again.

[Sarcastr0]

On my 'to read soon' list:

Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros - (Empyrean, Book 2)
The Wizard's Butler by Nathan Lowell
Armor by John Steakley
The Grief of Stones by Katherine Addison
The Raven Stratagem by Yoon Ha Lee
Spear by Nicola Griffith

[Jordan Brown]

I find that I no longer look for “great” books. A great book will give me a day of entertainment. I look for consistently-entertaining series of books, so that after I risk a day reading the first book, I get several more days or weeks of entertainment reading the later ones.

Along those lines, I have to recommend Christopher Nuttall’s fantasy work – notably the Schooled in Magic series and the Zero Enigma series. Decent world-building, characters, and plots. Not Great Works, but consistently readable; I automatically buy them whenever they come out. I’m not as fond of his military SF stuff, but there’s a lot of it and some might like it. (I’ve liked the Kat Falcone series.) He’s unbelievably prolific. One interesting bit about the Zero Enigma series is that after the first few books most of the books have featured new protagonists, so you see the same events from multiple perspectives as the overall story advances.

Ilona Andrews’ stuff is similarly consistently good, though you have to accept that every book has an Obligatory Sex Scene. The Kate Daniels series is particularly noteworthy.

As others have mentioned, anything by Lois McMaster Bujold.

I’ve been reading the Witcher series by Andrzej Sapkowski. I’ve been enjoying it, though I can’t exactly say why.

Gail Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate series is a lot of fun, if you like a sort of parody of steampunk. (Vampires, werewolves, and Victorian high society; what’s not to like?) There’s a prequel series, a sequel series, and a number of side novellas. (Most have Obligatory Sex Scenes.)

I like most of Weber’s Honor Harrington series, though the more recent books have gone downhill. I also like his Safehold series, though it seems to have run out of steam.

[Sarcastr0]

A fun subgenre is ‘books in dialogue with Starship Troopers.’

Mostly by ex-military and mostly not too happy with Heinlein’s take.

(full disclosure, Starship Troopers is one of my favorite novels but I am also very death of the author about it)

-Forever War
-Old Man’s War
-Poor Man’s War
-The Light Brigade

[ducksalad]

The premise of Poor Man's War is pretty amusing. I wonder how the author feels about Joe Biden's efforts to cancel student loans.

[Sarcastr0]

"Quick-witted Tanner Malone has bombed the Test, an all-important exam that establishes how much he owes for his corporate-funded education. With his future plans crushed under a mountain of debt, Tanner enlists in the navy of his home star system of Archangel. But he hasn’t factored in the bullying shipmates, the civil war brewing on the border, or the space pirates.

As Tanner begins basic training, the government ramps up its forces to confront the vicious raiders wreaking havoc throughout human space. Led by the complex and charismatic Captain Casey, the outlaws never let their egalitarian and democratic ideals get in the way of a little murder or mayhem."

[Harvey Mosley]

"The Bug Wars" by Robert Asprin has a different take on this type of story.

[Sarcastr0]

I remember Robert Asprin well from high school! Specifically his Myth Adventures series.

I still remember the twist in Little Myth Marker.

[Harvey Mosley]

I LOVED the Sen Sen Ante Kid!

[Brett Bellmore]

He was a fun guy at conventions, too.

A friend of mine in college illustrated the graphic novels for that series. If you liked those, you should check out his "Buck Godot, Zap Gun for Hire" series.

[Zarniwoop]

Big fan of The Forever War. That it’s through the lens of Vietnam rather than the 1950s Cold War is a big factor.

[The Folding Attorney]

I've often said that Starship Troopers and The Forever War ought to be published together in a single volume. When my son decided to join the Army, I made sure that he read them both first.

[BrotherMovesOn]

(full disclosure, Starship Troopers is one of my favorite "novels but I am also very death of the author about"it)

What does this mean Sarcastr0?

[Sarcastr0]

Heinlein was very VERY pro military when he wrote ST.
But he's a better student of human nature than he realized.

Rico's character arc is dehumanization.

Rico is a normal kid full of ichoate ambition at the start of the novel.
By the end he is so emotionally disconnected he gets the shakes when he drops but doesn't really have access to the fear making them happen.

The perfect soldier. A wreck of a human. The MI is his and he is theirs.

[BrotherMovesOn]

Thanks. I haven’t read it. Probably should.
I’ve only read Stranger in a Strange Land and Tramp Royale, which was enjoyable non-fiction.

[Hugo S. Cunningham]

(1) Some (though not all) of Robert Heinlein's juvenile series have aged well. The first ("Rocket Ship Galileo", 1947) was awful-- how to get to the Moon in a rebuilt bathtub. But some I have liked include--
"Starman Jones", 1953-- a piece of candy, without educational significance;
"Citizen of the Galaxy", 1957;
"Have Space Suit--Will Travel", 1958-- especially parts of the last third or so. "I, who am about to die, will show you a Roman's grave-- piled high with Caesar's enemies!";

(2) "Tunnel in the Sky" (1955) has an interesting background. (2a) A year earlier, British author William Golding had published the novel "Lord of the Flies", about an evacuated planeload of British schoolboys, age approximately 12, marooned on a tropical island. By the time they are rescued, they have descended into savagery.
(2b) In "Tunnel in the Sky", Heinlein maroons a mixed examination group of late teens on an exotic planet. Reflecting Heinlein's optimism about human nature, they overcome various dangers and challenges, both human and natural, to create a decent civilization by the time they are rescued.

(3) Miscellaneous remarks--
Heroes of Heinlein juveniles often have extraordinary abilities, but never show the slightest trace of snobbery. Heinlein often includes intelligent and resourceful female characters, routine today, but a rarity in the sci-fi of the 1940s and 1950s.

[Kazinski]

If you like hard science fiction then Lucifer’s Hammer by Niven and Pournelle is a must read. The description of what would happen if a comet broke up and several large chunks hit the earth.

[Area Man]

"The Once and Future King" by T.H. White.

Also, I'm not sure if this falls into either category, but to the extent it does, "Midnight's Children" by Salman Rushdie.

[SRG2]

I think Paolo Bacigalupi is worth a mention - Windup Girl and Water Knife specifically. His stuff is deffo different from the rest. He puts a lot of effort into considering what the political and social environments are for his protagonists, so the background always feels well worked out.

[Intelligent Mr Toad]

THE CHILDREN’S COUNTRY by Kay Burdekin (published 1929)

THE WALKING STONES by Mollie Hunter

MRS COVERLET’S MAGICIANS by Mary Nash

SKY ISLAND by L. Frank Baum

PERELANDRA by C. S. Lewis

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I'd recommend Lewis' whole trilogy.

That Hideous Strength is a great dystopian novel, it just happened to be overshadowed at that period by 1984 and Brave New World.

[Flight-ER-Doc]

I just finished John Ringo's "Beyond the Ranges". Hopefully the first of a series - an interesting premise, some unspecified calamity destroys earth, some 500M people are 'saved' by some cybernetic organisms who keep them in stasis for around 2M years, whilst they terraform new planets for them - and then awaken them with various groups sorted into various groups, but with conservative/libertarians well separated (planets apart) from liberals/socialists.

The libertarians awake on a space station with the planet below, spacecraft able to reach the planet and return, various implements - and then left to create a government, federal, state, local....and figure out how to take advantage of a planet with an interesting assortment of wildlife.

Also, similar in some ways, the series by Ed Nelson, the Cast in Time series....a retired US Army Colonel of considerable age finally passes on earth. And awakes on earth, ca 700 CE in more or less Wales, England at more or less 20 years of age. During his first life he was in the US Army Corps of Engineers, upon retirement proceeded to spend 50ish years simply learning. So he takes that knowledge back to 700 CE. 5 book series, hoping for a sixth.

And finally, a series by an otherwise unknown author to me, Gabriel Rathweg - in the nearish future, a US Air Force warrant officer cook is involved in a space battle, and is somehow transported to a parallel earth in maybe 1100CE? in Asia - specifically Japan/China/Korea..... 5 books, waiting for a sixth.

[Harvey Mosley]

Jim Butcher has a couple of good fantasy series. Harry Dresden and the Codex Alera.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Tolkien's Farmer Giles of Ham.

[Kazinski]

Along with Smith of Wooten Major, but definitely Farmer Giles is not only great, but also is Libertarian in outlook.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

The works of William Morris - not the agency founder, but the Victorian Pre-Raphaelite.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Oh, and H. P. Lovecraft’s works – he absolutely qualifies as a fantasy author as well as a horror writer.

If he wasn't a fantasy author, how did he come to be one of the inspirations for Dungeons and Dragons?

[Brett Bellmore]

You'd be hard put to find an author who wasn't one of the inspirations for D&D Gygax borrowed so widely.

For instance, he took the magic system from Jack Vance's Dying Earth series.

[Toranth]

Hmm, all the great classics have already been listed, so I'll mention an author that is a bit niche.
Jasper Fforde and his books, especially Shades of Grey and the Thursday Next series.
Fforde, like David Brin, seems to come up with a new society/world first, and then write a story in it - but he doesn't spend any time telling the reader all the differences between our world and his. Instead, he naturally presents events and lets the reader pick up on things. When the character describes a cabbie as "a Neanderthal", it might take moment before the reader realizes that isn't an insult, but a literal description. And then the reader needs to wait until later to learn why there is a Neanderthal driving a cab.

And of course, my dirty pleasure: webnovels. I particularly recommend Mother of Learning by Domagoj Kurmaić, aka nobody103. He published this book in entirety online for free, so it doesn't even require a trip to the library to read.
It's a time-loop fantasy story. Not excessively original, but well thought out and solidly written.

[Gasman]

This is how you loose the time war by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
A short read, with an interesting premise and twist.
I am the last male in a work book club, and had little success encouraging the group to accept a pick exactly my interest(Bradbury, Farmer, Heinlein, etc.) The women's book choices so often seemed to have same-sex undercurrents, so this was my hook. I googled 'lesbian sci-fi time travel' and found this, plus a whole other world of sci-fi lesbian books.

[Sarcastr0]

Second this - It's a banger - I added it to my shelf.

[Brett Bellmore]

Ethan of Athos, by Bujold, would seem to fit your needs. Well, kinda, at least it's same sex.

[Intelligent Mr Toad]

Two short stories by Isaac Asimov: "Pate de Foie Gras" and "The Dead Past"

[Whitey51]

"Stand on Zanzibar" by John Brunner.

[Craig Johnston]

‘Tuf Voyaging’ by George R. R. Martin is an enjoyable collection of stories about bioengineering.

[twobaylorbears]

I'm really surprised (though maybe I just missed it) to not see Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea books. They are lovely.

I recently read and enjoyed Anthony Ryan's Raven's Shadow series (the first set is better than the second, but I enjoyed both).

Brent Weeks has two series. I finished the Lightbringer series, and it was solid. I couldn't get beyond book two of his Night Angel books.

Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time books are great for the treadmill.

C.S. Lewis both Narnia and the Space Trilogy are fantastic and deep.

Sanderson is the Taylor Swift of fantasy. Everything he writes is solid, but nothing is transcendental. He just hits doubles up the gap every time. I haven't read all (or even most) of his work, and I'm waiting for Stormlight Archive to be done before I start, but if you're looking for a great standalone story, I recommend Elantris.

I also liked the first three books of the Pendragon Cycle by Lawhead. If you like King Arthur stuff, Mists of Avalon is great.

I slogged through the Malzhan Book of the Fallen series. Don't make that mistake. The Erikson books are meh, and the payoff isn't worth the pagecount. The Esslemont books are better, but you can't understand them if you aren't reading the whole series.

Don't waste your time on Wolfe's Shadow & Claw.

Most overrated has to be Sword of Shannara.

[SRG2]

Going waaaay back and I don't know whether he's even read in the US - Olaf Stapledon, particularly "Starmaker" and "Last and First Men"

And John Sladek - whose "Muller Fokker Effect" has the distinction of the first work of fiction to predict Reagan as president. The two Roderick novels as well.

And James Blish's duology "Black Easter" and "Day After Judgment"

[Brett Bellmore]

Oh, I've absolutely read Stapleton. British SF has a fair amount of penetration in the US, and Starmaker is a classic.

Speaking of British SF, Mutant 59: The Plastic Eater was pretty good.

And now for an oddball suggestion: Galouye's The Infinite Man. Physicists literally discover God, hiding inside a drug addict.

[Sarcastr0]

Sometimes you're in the mood for some of the 'nothing is a cliche and science is kinda magic' old time style.

Read an A. E. van Vogt book just about exactly a year ago: The Voyage of the Space Beagle (1950).

The pacing was all messed up, but it was a good ride when it was cooking. And plenty of ideas that would be innovative even today.

[SRG2]

Love AEvV! Of course the pacing is messed up. He wrote in 800-word chunks when he wasn't stitching together short stories.

[Brett Bellmore]

I think the only part of that I've read is The Black Destroyer, published as a short story.

[Sarcastr0]

What did you think? That was like the most normal and modernist part of the book, which meant it was easier to follow but also less wildly innovative than later bits.

I did like taking the alien’s PoV for a time.

The book's ending has the main character, the only generalist scientist of the group, after a lot of academic backbiting, taking over both the military/crew and the scientists via hypnosis because only he has the perspective and post-hypnotic training to handle how dangerous space is.

Feel like the author was working some stuff out on that one.

[Brett Bellmore]

That was kind of an enduring theme with him. See The World of Null-A, for instance.

The idea was making the rounds at the time, that there might be some radically different way of thinking that, if learned, would give people a big advantage. It turns up in a lot of stories written about that time.

[SRG2]

Well, recall that he was heavily into General Semantics...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_semantics

[Brett Bellmore]

Amusingly, I have a worn old original edition of Alfred Korzybski's "Science and Sanity" that I picked up at a flea market years ago.

Observations like "The map is not the territory" were useful to state, but I mainly keep it around as a last ditch insomnia cure when all else fails. It never fails.

[SRG2]

It strikes me that though we may disagree politically, we generally agree on the important stuff! 🙂

[Sarcastr0]

Been listening to this when I swim:

https://archive.org/details/MindWebs_201410

The 1970s part of the archive really shows some of the weird social places we were in back then.
-There's one about someone being trapped on an endlessly descending escalator.
-tons of apocalyptic big bomb stories
-automation meaning dehumanization

And there was something going on about fear of children.

[Sarcastr0]

Ideas for future similar threads:

-Adaptations
-Music
-Comedians
-Podcasts
-Charities
-Life hacks
-YouTube channels
-Online stores

[Darth Buckeye]

STARTIDE RISING by David Brin. SPACE VIKING by H. Beam Piper. THE MOTE IN GOD'S EYE by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle.

[Darth Buckeye]

Larry Niven's Known Space future history is a lot of fun. You should start by reading TALES OF KNOWN SPACE, then NEUTRON STAR, then A GIFT FROM EARTH, and PROTECTOR. After all of those, read RINGWORLD. The books are all fairly short. Lots of fun.

[Paladin_44]

This is a good one: https://www.project2025.org/
Lots of co-authors.
Not sure if its science fiction or just plain ol' fantasy.

[The Folding Attorney]

Almost anything by Neal Stephenson but in particular:
Snowcrash. Cyberpunk done right!
Quicksilver, The Confusion, and The System of the World (three volumes totaling, IIRC, about 4,500 pp. A fantastic telling of various histories.
Cryptonomicon. Continuing stories of some of the families first heard of in the above trilogy .

Three by Samuel R. Delany: Dhalgren (If you're young enough when you read it, it may change your life), Heavenly Breakfast, and Driftglass (the last is a collection of short stories).

Two by John Crowley: Little, Big and Engine Summer.

*Everything by Ray Bradbury*, but in particular, The Toynbee Convector (a collection of stories, and the title story in that collection).

[NOVA Lawyer]

I absolutely second Neal Stephenson. Cryptonomicon is my favorite, but I haven't read anything bad. Of course, I haven't read The Baroque Cycle, so probably didn't even get all there was to get out of Cryptonomicon.

Really smart guy, great writer. I love his books.

I'll look into Samuel R. Delany and Crowley. (Major gaps in my reading, obviously. I don't read much sci-fi and fantasy.)

Of course, Ray Bradbury is uniformly excellent.

[FilioScotia]

The Boat of a Million Years by Poul Andersen.
Methusalah’s Children by Robert A. Heinlein
Time Enough For Love also by Heinlein,
and a sequel to Methusalah's children
The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester
A Canticle for Liebowitz by Walter Miller

[The Folding Attorney]

I had forgotten A Canticle for Liebowitz. Absolutely brilliant! The shark was hungry for a very long time.

[FilioScotia]

A Canticle for Leibowitz was written in the late 1950s at the height of worldwide fears of an apocalypse and nuclear annihilation. I’m old enough to remember those times. Walter Miller used our fear to create what the world would be like if that ever came to pass. The fears were real because the possibility of annihilation was real.

[SRG2]

Great stuff there!

[Phosita]

For those interested in a list of SF books and films covering legal topics, as well as a more general discussion of SF and the law, check out this recent paper: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3647579

[Eric (the OC tanker)]

Anything from the following:
Gordon Dickson
David Drake
David Weber
John Ringo (includes co-authors)
John Scalizi
David Weber
Plus all the classics (Azimov and the rest!)

[Sarcastr0]

If we're doing authors, I like

Becky Chambers
Yoon Ha Lee
Ted Chiang

[William Cheswick]

Shockwave Rider….very early cyberpunk
Vast and other by Linda Nagata

And Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, fan fi free on line. What if Harry’s father taught him science, and then he became a magician.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yes, along with the Evangelion fanfic "Children of an Elder God", that's one of the fanfics that's actually decently written.

[No One Of Consequence]

E. R. Eddison's "The Worm Ouroboros" (1922). Heroic fantasy written in an archaic style that's not like anything else I know of.

"I still think of him as the greatest and most convincing writer of ‘invented worlds’ that I have read." -- J.R.R. Tolkien

"I thought that, corrupted by an evil and indeed silly 'philosophy', he was coming to admire, more and more, arrogance and cruelty. Incidentally, I thought his nomenclature slipshod and often inept." -- also J.R.R. Tolkien

"No writer can be said to remind us of Eddison." -- C.S. Lewis

[esurbaugh]

I recommend a few series/standalone options:

Series (no order)
The Expanse
Lensman
Expanded Universe by Heinlein (more spherical than serial)
Known Space by Niven (ditto)

Standalone (no order)
Alfred Bester (almost everything)
Lord of Light, Eye of Cat, This Immortal, all by Roger Zelazny
A Wizard of Earthsea by LeGuin (first of a series, but skip the rest)
Wrinkle in Time by L'engle (for your own health, ignore the sequel. Bleh)
The Cyberiad by Stanislaw Lem (a collection of short stories)
Stories of Your Life and others by Ted Chiang

[Ridgeway]

Surprised nobody mentioned the Anne McCaffrey “Pern” books. I never really got into them, but lots of people seem to like them.

Another series (for young readers — I loved them when I was around 10) is the Lloyd Alexander “Taran” series. The books were also pretty shamelessly ripped off for the original Baldur’s Gate CRPG.

Also, I don't think anybody mentioned the Madeleine L'Engle Wrinkle in Time series. Speaking of women who can really write.

[FilioScotia]

Anne McCaffrey “Pern” books are Fantasy. Not Science Fiction.

[Currentsitguy]

Sorry I am late to the party here. Just spent 3 days in an Internet, TV, and cell signal free cabin on the Clarion River in the Allegheny National Forest area. Incredibly relaxing, I highly recommend everyone do it occasionally.

What I was curious about was HOW you read. Print? Phone? Tablet? or dedicated e-book reader (Kindle, Kobo, etc)?

For pleasure I generally read scifi (no Fantasy I find it a real turnoff) on my Kobo. I've got a reading list hundreds of books long crammed onto this thing.

Brett spoke earlier about having poor vision at a young age. I fall into that group and it only got worse as the years went by to the point I was at 20/400, pretty much legally blind uncorrected, by my early 20's. As I approached my 50's the inability to see close came along for the ride. Progressive lenses are great for the day to day but they tend to make traditional print uncomfortably small. An e-ink based reader with scalable text size is a true godsend, particularly one that has the time of day based progressively warmer light. It's wonderful for reading in bed.

I love the Kobo. It, along with Pocketbook, is format and store agnostic unlike Kindle with I consider the iPhone of readers. It's format walled garden marries you to the Amazon store whereas the former two can display pretty much anything you can throw at it and don't necessarily need special software to transfer books, although the freeware Calibre is a fantastic management tool for pairing books with good metadata, covers, categories, collections, etc.

Really without e-ink I'd have probably by now given up on reading, or would have had to resort to large print books only. My wife found a series of candles that smell like old books she burns when we read to help bring that part of the experience back.

[wmconnolley]

The Deep, John Crowley; Icehenge, Kim Stanley Robinson; White Queen, Gwyneth Jones; Anathem, Neal Stephenson; The Dying Earth, or City of the Chasch / Servants of the Wankh / Dirdir / Pnume, Jack Vance; Stations of the Tide / Vacuum Flowers, Michael Swanwick. https://wmconnolley.blogspot.com/2022/05/scifi-and-fantasy-reviews.html.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Thanks everyone for this, it was really cool. One thing that I enjoyed were all the rave recommendations for things I thought were terrible. Books and literature are great that way.