A Jolly Good Read

[grimmas]

I know it's terribly last millennium but I do enjoy a book, but I ain't read them all so I thought it would be nice share I bit of knowledge on the old literature front.

I pose the question, what is your favourite SciFi novel and why?

I'll get the ball rolling with mine,

Starship Troopers by Robert A Heinlein. It's a genuine satire (not a parody like the joke of a film) with something to say on the susbject of personal and social responsibility versus rights and entitlements and a increasingly prophetic comment on modern society. It provides an interesting take on military efficiency and cooperation wrapped up with with Soldiers in armour fighting a truly Alien foe (rather than funny coloured humans). Despite common Internet "wisdom" I don't see it as the inspiration behind the Adeptus Astrates, who share very little with the mobile infantry other than that they wear armour.

Notable mentions go Frank Herbers Dune, which I believe is the real inspiration behind 40K and Joe Haldeman's forever war a very interesting take on how a war against an alien spieces would go and how it would affect the participants.

[Erik Setzer]

Can we go with the full sci-fi/fantasy genre?

If so, my choice will be kind of... "different." It's not a serious book that speaks to society or anything. My pick would probably, at least right now, be Grunts by Mary Gentle. It doesn't have a serious message, it's not packed with 2000 pages of intrigue or characters going on lengthy journeys. It's just about a group of orcs in a typical fantasy setting who help some halfling thieves kill a dragon and steal its hoard, with the hoard having the curse of "You become what you steal." And orcs being orcs and the dragon having interdimensional portals, the orcs steal a bunch of modern weapons like M16s and rocket launchers and stuff... which then causes them to believe they're Marines, and they start drilling like Marines, trying to fly helicopters, use tanks, etc. It's amusing to see the battle of magic versus technology, and there's a lot of memorable moments that are hilarious. It's super funny, but also kind of dark, because, well, it's orcs. (There's a scene with an elf convoy. I'll let your imagination fill in the rest.) And watching the Dark Lord's transformation in the book to trying to take over the world through a more insidious manner (politics) is also pretty funny. It's one of the few books I'll read over and over (so much that I had to replace it).

Also toward the top, and even more sci-fi-esque, is Mogworld, a book by Yahtzee Croshaw (of Zero Punctuation fame), that is pretty much about sort of sentient NPCs in an MMORPG under development (where apparently they programmed the characters' actions and reactions so well they effectively made a living world of AIs). They aren't really aware they're in a fake world, and are going about their lives trying to fight the evil and all that. I especially like the main character, who keeps arguing he's not a hero and at best would only want to be a protagonist (and keeps trying to avoid being in the middle of things but can't help being stuck saving the day).

If we're going to do serious (but I use novels to escape the seriousness of reality!), I'd have to go with Ender's Game. It shows a nice contrast between the optimism of youth and the pessimism of those who've been around a while. The side story with Ender's siblings is pretty interesting, where they're manipulating the politics of the world basically by stirring up the Internet. It's amazing that the Internet didn't really exist in the pervasive form it is today, and yet he still predicted that someone could possibly manipulate the whole world through the use of the Internet. Ender's also a believable character, and I have to admit that I've always agreed with the philosophy that if someone hurts you, you make sure they never hurt you or anyone else again (preferably just by putting fear into them rather than killing them, but sometimes it's unavoidable). Also, if you want to absolutely win a war, especially quickly, you have to be willing to accept a lot of sacrifices.

Bonus honorable mentions to Flash Forward (do we really have the power to change the future if we know what it is?) and World War Z (a mostly believable tale of a "zombie apocalypse," and I like the format of someone talking to various survivors to get their stories).

[grimmas]

Yeah let's go full genre in fact one of each for SciFi and fantasy.

I've read Grunts it's a right rollicking read I really enjoyed it and it was nice for someone to do things from the other perspective.

If we are adding fantasy I'll add David Gemmell's Legend. It's great and investigates the characters reasons for doing what they doing rather than just that they are caught up in events. He seems to make the characters more human by doing so.

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

I pretty much only read hard SF that has a focus on decent aliens. So quite niche there :P

1) Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon -

it's a history of the entier universe from beginning to end, has all kinds of weird and wonderful alien cultures described with the "star makers" themselves being nebulas which are shown to be enourmous godlike beings. Proper aliens no "space bugs/insects" or "humanoid" crap. one alien race are litterally one conjoined orgamism that spans an entire planet. Way ahead of it's time given it was released in 1937.

2) XeeLee Trilology by Stephen Baxter -

Sub quantum civilizations that exist in the first nano-seconds of the big bang, dark matter beings, a war as long as the universe itself, cosmic strings turned into escape hatches outside the universe and again has proper aliens and proper hard science in it. Mind blowing stuff that hollywood wouldn't touch with a ten foot bargepole.

3) Dragon's Egg by Robert L Forward

It's about alien life that evolve on a dying neutron star. The aliens are the protagonists and they are small disc-like creatures that weigh the same as humans but are the size of a 5p coin. Their time perception is different to ours - living entire lives in the space of one human hour. It was written by an physicist that knows his stuff and has a great imaginaton. I loved it so much I even made an instrumental soundtrack tribute to it.

[Morgrim]

It's less a story and more a series of constantly posted microfics, but Eldraeverse (http://eldraeverse.com/) is an interesting sci-fi setting. Mostly optimistic, likes poking fun at tropes, and has some truly alien aliens (although the main species, the Eldrae, are transophant humanoids). Like the galari, who are mineral-viral symboites that take the form of several foot long crystals, live off electromagnetic radiation, and communicate via biological radio.

[Psychosplodge]

I think in the last half a dozen years the two series I've been most excited to read and see a new book from are start with "The electric Church" by Jeff Somers, and "The Atrocity Archives" by Charles Stross.

The first is a dystopian cyberpunk future, and follows a contract killer as he tries to make his living and survive. The main character almost feels like Kal Jerico, with the sarcasm ramped up to 11.

The second follows for the most part Bob, a network/IT guy at the worlds only ISO9001 accredited occult intelligence agency, and his more and more complicated life as he is sent on field assignments.

Both have a series. Both are series I'm excited to see new releases from, and will pretty much put everything down to read a new one, and then will read it again almost immediately.

[grimmas]

Excellent stuff.

Yeah Psychosplodge that's the sweet spot. I've not had that feeling for a while. The writers who used to do it have unfortunately passed on so I'm on the hunt for more.

Xeno, how hard are we talking? I'm no idiot but neither am I a mathematical genius.

Cheers Morgrim that's definitely a bit different

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

Excellent stuff.

Yeah Psychosplodge that's the sweet spot. I've not had that feeling for a while. The writers who used to do it have unfortunately passed on so I'm on the hunt for more.

Xeno, how hard are we talking? I'm no idiot but neither am I a mathematical genius.

Cheers Morgrim that's definitely a bit different


Stapledon is probably more on the softer end of the hard SF spectrum, Baxter and Forward are more around a 8/10 in "hardness" and yeah I will happily admit there is stuff I don't understand at all but for me that is actually part of the appeal as it makes me want to learn more and try to understand stuff (part of the fun to me)

[CoffeeGrunt]

Favourite sci-fi book at the moment is The Martian. Very close to home and very hard sci-fi that wears its science on its sleeve. It's not particularly eloquent in its description, but the main character is surprisingly well-rounded and incredibly likable, and the whole scenario feels very much like something that could one day actually happen.

It's also hilarious, I was laughing my backside off at some parts.

Fantasy book/series will for the forseeable future always be The Bartimaeus Sequence. Alternate-history British Empire where the Empire is run by an over-class of Magician-Politicians, who summon demons in precise and dangerous rituals to harness their power for their own ends. Almost without exception they're self-serving and ambitious in the extreme, they keep the commoner folk under heel through ignorance and their demons are slaved to their will and eternally trying to find ways to defy their masters.

The three viewpoint characters are Nathaniel, a magician apprentice who soars through the ranks as the series progresses and is a great blend of ambition with a core of fading morality. Bartimaeus, one of his demons who is incredibly amusing and has literally seen it all through millennia of serving master after master through countless long-forgotten empires. Also Kitty Jones, a commoner with a resilience to magic who begins planning a revolution to overthrow the magicians.

Probably my favourite example of excellent world-building, humour and relatable characters rolled into one series. :)

/Edit/

Honorary sci-fi mention to The Hitchikers' Guide. It's as soft as they come, deliciously British and I can't think of a funnier series of books.

Except the ending. Crikey that was depressing.

[Kirsten]

I recently read all of the (so far) Omega Force series, Firefly meets A-Team. not hard sci fi, but the author knows enough to make nods to it. also the Black Fleet trilogy, which is harder sci fi, and awesome also.

[Psychosplodge]

Not the Star wars EU black fleet trilogy? There's another series of the same name?

[Kirsten]

nope, not Star Wars, it is by Joshua Dalzelle

[Erik Setzer]

Favourite sci-fi book at the moment is The Martian.
...
It's also hilarious, I was laughing my backside off at some parts.

Well, you'd expect that, for the novel that a comedy movie was based off of.

For those who hadn't heard that story:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-martian-best-comedy-twitter_us_56932dade4b0a2b6fb70a7e0

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

Just found out Forward has written more hypotehtical alien culture based books, this book series sounds AWESOME :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocheworld

And the main aliens are described :
Flouwen (the Middle English word for 'flow') are the alien creatures in the book. They are the sole inhabitants of the planet Eau, which makes up the watery half of Rocheworld. Flouwen are blob-like, happy-go-lucky aliens that spend their days surfing waves and working on difficult mathematical problems.

Flouwen appear to be giant, colored jellyfish in the ammonia oceans of Eau. Like Earthly jellyfish, they are amorphous, colored blobs of jelly. Flouwen are highly intelligent, sexless, and do not appear to physically age. They are able to communicate and see in the water by means of sonar. They are also able to see outside the water by morphing their jelly bodies into crude lenses, which they use to methodically track the stars. Flouwen are also capable of morphing themselves into a hard, rock-like substance when they feel the need to think about a difficult problem for an extended period. They do this by excreting much of their body water, thereby bringing their silica-gel-based cells closer together, which allows quicker processing of information.

----

I know what I'm reading next! A shame he died in 2002.

[Psychosplodge]

nope, not Star Wars, it is by Joshua Dalzelle

Hmm looks interesting, might have to grab those at somepoint

[Al Shut]

I'll have to admit I've never read much Science Fiction besides Adams but of his books I prefer Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency over Hitchhiker's Guide. Can't put my finger on why, maybe because the plot is much more convoluted.

Fantasy it's clearly the Zamonia series by Walter Moers the best being Rumo & his miraculous adventures. Brilliantly illustrated it has the most *** kicking in the series and, at least in my opinion, the best handling of the very digressive nature of these books.

[CoffeeGrunt]

I'll have to admit I've never read much Science Fiction besides Adams but of his books I prefer Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency over Hitchhiker's Guide. Can't put my finger on why, maybe because the plot is much more convoluted.

Fantasy it's clearly the Zamonia series by Walter Moers the best being Rumo & his miraculous adventures. Brilliantly illustrated it has the most *** kicking in the series and, at least in my opinion, the best handling of the very digressive nature of these books.

I read a bit of his Dirk Gently work in The Salmon of Doubt. I need to look up the rest of it, as it was as entertaining as Adams always was. :)

[grimmas]

An interesting mix of stuff coming out good to see. Slightly off topic but something I found quite interesting. I was reading another forum (Sorry, but it was MWO so related) and someone raised the point that only hard SciFi was actually science fiction, as it was science based fiction, and anything else was just fantasy. He didn't give any ratio or definitions but did suggest that if the premise realised on a certain amount of hand wavery to explain it then it was fantasy. So 40K fantasy as is Star Wars and the Battleetech universe. Thoughts?

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

I think he is right to an extent. I personally call stuff like Star wars, Dune and flash Gordon "Space Fantasy" and never really saw any of that sort of stuff as SF even when I was a kid it was "fantasy in space".

[CoffeeGrunt]

I thought it was more that Hard Sci-Fi is technically feasible and thought out. So, for example, a novel about a Generational Ship and the struggles of society aboard it could be entirely based on factual knowledge of such a design and does its homework on the mathematics, etc in order to make it seem like it could be real.

Whereas soft sci-fi would be the same story with a bit more hand-waving, i.e., the ship is stated to travel at a certain speed and fuel itself indefinitely, but this isn't clearly explained, and nor is food production. Not to say that soft sci-fi is inherently 'lazier.' A lot of soft sci-fi has become reality over the centuries, after all.

WH40K and Star Wars are very much Science Fantasy, though. They are generic Fantasy settings transposed onto a galactic scale. They have wizards and magic, nothing is explained in any scientific capacity and basically none of it is possible with the current understanding of physics.

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

Yep, pretty much agreed!





Another classic is Hal Clement's "Mission of gravity". This is another great hard SF classic with a non-humanoid alien a one of the main characters.

http://36.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0g6m7gyRx1r102r6o1_500.jpg
"The story is set on a highly oblate planet named Mesklin, which has surface gravity that varies between 700 g at the poles and 3 g at the equator. The story is told from the points of view of one of the local intelligent life forms and a human explorer. The locals are centipede-like, in order to withstand the enormous gravity, and terrified of even small heights (because in 700 g even a tiny fall is fatal)."

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

The science is focussed on the concept of an oblate planet and the lifeforms on it. I like weird sci-fi planets and intelligent alien centipedes are cool. This is one I'd love to see made into a movie. There is a human explorer to bridge the gap.

[grimmas]

Just picked up the Xeelee omnibus from waterstones. Google is on standby for the difficult bits 😳. I didn't know Stephen Baxter had collaborated with Sir Terry Pratchett which bodes well.

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

Just picked up the Xeelee omnibus from waterstones. Google is on standby for the difficult bits 😳. I didn't know Stephen Baxter had collaborated with Sir Terry Pratchett which bodes well.

He's collaborated with Arthur C Clarke too! "Ring" is my favourite of the Xeelee omnibus. That one just blew me away with the concepts and ideas. Man is a total legend.

[Psychosplodge]

Right everyone stop what you're doing.

Right now I have your attention.

Go forth, find, acquire and read this.

http://i.imgur.com/cBfCLkv.jpg

While it is the latest in a series, the only real series spoilers are the still living characters and the conclusion of the book immediately preceding it.
But this is the first book in at least six months that I have sat down and read cover to cover essentially non-stop.
I love what it did with Tolkien fantasy tropes, folklore, modern references and the series usual nameless lovecraftian horror.

In case you missed the subtle message, go read it.

[CoffeeGrunt]

Those tentacles look like it'll be up Xeno's street at least. I'll add it to the pile. ;)

[Psychosplodge]

I do recommend the entire series, and the authors complete published works.

Eldritch tentacle gribblies are more background dressing of the world, thought they do make appearances throughout the series.

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

backround dressing :( I want them as the main characters though!

[Psychosplodge]

AX you'd definitely be better starting at the beginning.

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

Still waiting for Shuma Gorath to get it's solo outing too. #cosmichorrorrepresentation

[Erik Setzer]

I finished a book this week (took less than a week to read, which is pretty amazing for me right now) called "Almost Infamous."

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1940456509/

It was recommended by a friend, and it was a very fun read. Basic premise is it's a world where superheroes came about in the 1800s, and started influencing the world heavily, and there's a smattering of other modern marvel tropes thrown in (Atlanteans, one or two other formerly-hidden races on Earth, aliens, geniuses doing gene-splicing on people, that kind of stuff). Heroes and villains fought time and again, the heroes finally won the "War on Villainy," and there hasn't been a villain in two decades (and people are supposed to register any powers they manifest). This kid gets powers, doesn't want to register, doesn't want to be a hero, but wants fame and fortune and women (who he knows nothing about), so he decides to try to be a villain. That doesn't turn out so well, and he ends up roped into the superheroes' "Project Kayfabe" (a word I had to look up, but if you know what it means, it's obvious). Basically, they make a fake team of villains to fight in staged scenarios so the public thinks they still need independently operating heroes.

The protagonist (definitely not "hero") is, honestly, not terribly likable much of the time, but comes off as "real" because of it. It's also hilarious how he wants women and sex so bad but knows nothing about either... or pretty much life in general. In a world of perfect heroes, that's kind of refreshing (especially as it works to add more tension and humor to the story).

There's also bits between each chapter called "Supervillainy 101" that give brief history lessons on the world, and a "Lesson Learned" at the end of each that basically serves as a hint of what's coming in the next chapter.

Fun read, amusing characters, worth a read.

Oh, and for those who this is important to: The characters really are more than just a trope, and there's strong and weak characters of both genders. It's pretty fair in treating both genders equally. I know that's sometimes a problem with books. Can't say much more without spoiler territory, though.