[puck]

anyone else into sci-fi/fantasy books? i'm a big fan of fantasy books and i need a recommendation for some new authors. i've read quite a bit of stuff but some of my favorites are Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn by Tadd Williams, the George R.R. Martin books, Tolkien...

i would really like to find more stuff like Martin's. hard, dark stories with characters that do good and evil things so you find yourself not knowing who the "good guy" is supposed to be.

i'd also like to find some good dark and twisted sci-fi. any recs?

 

[Maxvla]

most book sci-fi is in my definition of weird sci-fi.

there are two kinds of sci-fi imho.

star trek/wars/babylon 5, etc tech style scifi and then there are the more fantastic more surreal "weird" scifi. more and more weird scifi is becoming almost to a point of fantasy with science flavor.

the only book besides trek i've read that i've enjoyed that was scifi was Crichton's Timeline. I've tried several others but always lose interest because of the more improbable stories and moreso the characters.

i discussed LOTR with my sister (27, I am 20) the other day on the phone. she likes it and was shocked when i told her i couldn't stand it. i'm just not a fantasy fan. stories i like are at least somewhat realistic and have a foundation in our planet and culture.

if there are any books anyone would suggest for me to read i am very open. i need a good book to read.

 

[puck]

maxvla, you might try reading Neil Gaiman's novel American Gods. its set in modern middle-of-nowhere america. its not sci-fi and nothing like tolkien style fantasy but is quite interesting and very well written.

 

[Maxvla]

thanks i will pick that up next time i'm at B+N in the next few days.

 

[ooheadsoo]

Damn I've been waiting for near 2-3 years now for the next installment of Martin's series!!

Tad's thorn series was quite nice. I never did finish the otherland series though. He's a bit of a windbag imo.

American gods was entertaining. Ooh, the one er...ahem...scene jumped out at me a bit though. You might know what I'm talking about if you've read it, or will know when you read it

I think there are at least a 3 types of sci-fi. There's the soft tech like star trek and babylon 5 where there's a bit of scientific research gone into creating the environment, etc, there's the weird scifi that really has no science except that it's in "space" and then there's the hard tech scifi, of which niven is just barely scraping the surface. Some people consider niven merely a mid tech scifi, with hardcore scifi reserved for authors who delve even deeper into the physics of the matter.

I tend to swing back and forth between scifi and fantasy. I've been on a major fantasy swing for 5 or 6 years now, and have read relatively little scifi for a while.

One of my favorite scifi authors right now is multiple hugo award winner lois mcmasters bujold. Smooooooooooooooth is all i have to say about her

Oh yeah, she's a bit liberal too. Her book about the incestuous gay guy was a bit much for me. L.E. Modesitt (sp?) is quite good, though heavy on philosophy. I enjoy both his scifi and fantasy.

Ok, I admit I'm extremely tired of Robert Jordan by now, but I still bought his latest book!

Currently I'm reading Rhapsody by Elizabeth Hayden.

 

[radrd]

I enjoy David Eddings's works and Terry Brooks's Shannara series. I recommend both, but the Shannara series is probably better.

Definitely read Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game," if you haven't already. It's the best of the series IIRC.

You might also read Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" for some historical Sci-Fi especially if you have read 1984 and liked it. Read 1984 too.

If I think of more, I'll get back to you.

 

[ooheadsoo]

I only like Ender's game from the original series. It had by far the most impact, though he received even more accolades for the following books (speaker for the dead, etc.) However, I find that the rest of his shadow series is very entertaining, in the vein of Ender's game.

I never managed to get into Eddings's and Brook's works. Maybe he's just bad at writing beginnings of books cuz I just felt like putting the book down.

 

[Blighty]

Quote:

Originally posted by puck i would really like to find more stuff like Martin's. hard, dark stories with characters that do good and evil things so you find yourself not knowing who the "good guy" is supposed to be. i'd also like to find some good dark and twisted sci-fi. any recs?

Off the top of my head, if you like darker sci-fi, try reading William Gibson's cyberpunk trilogy: Neuromancer, Count Zero & Mona Lisa Overdrive. Philip K. Dick also has many great books that I would consider dark.

 

[Maxvla]

Quote:

Originally posted by ooheadsoo I only like Ender's game from the original series. It had by far the most impact, though he received even more accolades for the following books (speaker for the dead, etc.) However, I find that the rest of his shadow series is very entertaining, in the vein of Ender's game. I never managed to get into Eddings's and Brook's works. Maybe he's just bad at writing beginnings of books cuz I just felt like putting the book down.

doh! how could i forget enders game.

i read that in 9th grade about 6 years ago. was an english assignment i fully enjoyed. never did pick up the rest of the books. i will hafta get those at some point. actually i should probably re-read enders game now that i'm a bit older and more mature. i would probably pick up more things than i did.

 

[Maxvla]

Quote:

Originally posted by radrd historical Sci-Fi especially if you have read 1984 and liked it. Read 1984 too.

Loved 1984 but i don't consider it scifi at all. not even fantasy. its more of a political essay with an unlikely love story to me. the "really could happen" factor really pulls this out of scifi/fantasy for me.

 

[puck]

i'll have to give William Gibson a try. i was actually looking at those books on the net today. i'll also have a look at lois mcmasters bujold.

i've read 1984, brave new world, slaughterhouse 5, fahrenheit 451, and many others in that area.

i haven't gotten in Eddings. i've heard mixed things about him. i'm sure that i will read some of his stuff eventually though. Brookes didn't quite do it for me though.

jordan is another i haven't gotten into yet. his series is just too damn long. i have a feeling that i will get burned out on it if i start pluss i really hate waiting for "the next book" to come out and i wonder if he will ever finish that series.

the ender books are good but ender's game is definitely the best of them.

another good space sci-fi series is stephen donaldson's gap series. its pretty hardcore at times.

i just ordered neil gaimon's neverwhere so i hope it is as good as american gods was. we'll see.

thanks for the recs so far.
puck

 

[ai0tron]

Sci/fi is great.

thingy Im writing this book called Annie and the Dinosaurs, its sci-fi, youre all going to love it. Itll be done in about 1 year, dont hold your breathe.

 

[Jackangel]

I don't really like Jordan's style of writing...the way he creates characters and writes dialogue tend to get on my nerves...but he's great at populating a world and history and keep so many things up in the air at once. I am mostly interested in how the story will go, and what the final sequence is like.

I've read...I think 9 Eddings books, and I don't much care for much of his dialogue or characters, for that matter. But I enjoy the stories.

C.S. Friedman's Coldfire trilogy is a really good sci-fi/fantasy series as well.

And Neil Gaiman is a great writer, based on American Gods and Stardust...I like the way he tells stories, and his characters and dialogue are different, i.e. they don't really suck.

 

[qutius]

I've been reading a decent amount of Fantasy in the past week or two.

I just finished The Legent of Huma which was written by Richard A. Knaak - this was a very fun book to read and is an overall great story. I highly recommend this book.

Right now, I am reading Dragons of Autumn Twilight which is part one of a trilogy written by Margaret Weise and Tracy Hickman. I've got about another 50 pages left in this book and I've enjoyed this one quite a bit as well.

After the Weise/Hickman trilogy, I've got two more sci-fi books to read - The Warrior's Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold and Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. After those are done, the next batch will arrive

 

[Rizumu]

Yeah, I've read the Dragonlance trilogy too. I've actually heard that the Legend of Huma is one of, if not the best Dragonlance book. Sitting on my bookshelf with a whole flock of other scifi/fantasy books I'm planning on getting too...

The problem is, when I first got into fantasy, I bought all of these Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance type books, but now that I'm into fantasy books of a higher calliber (Martin

) it's hard to go back. Seriously, I would love to enjoy Drizzt books as much as I did when I was 13, but it just isn't so anymore... It's sort of like going back to listening to stock phones after trying out the Portapros. No can do, my friend...

Anyway, I just finished Storm of Swords by Martin...AWESOME series, really the best damn fantasy books I've ever read. Tolkien is...Tolkien. I'd have to say that yes I enjoyed them, but I'm not really a big fan of his writing style. Don't get me wrong, I still like LOTR. My brother is one of those insane Tolkien fans though...

Martin had better not pull a J.K. Rowling on us and finish that fourth book soon! I'm actually looking through what I have right now, trying to think of what book I want to start next.