Been reading a lot of Iain M. Banks lately and I’m due for something different. Any suggestions?
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In SCIENCE FICTION, here are some I would recommend:
“On Basilisk Station” () by David Weber
(the first book in the “Honor Harrington” series)
This Space Navy series has FEMALE lead character. Beyond the Technology of the spacecraft and weapons, the story revolves around interpersonal relationships with which you will be able to identify.
“Sassinak” () by Anne McCaffrey
(the first book of “The Planet Pirates trilogy”)
Has a FEMALE lead character.
“Hunting Party” () by Elizabeth Moon
(first book of the “Heris Serrano” trilogy – a Space Opera)
It has a FEMALE main character.
“Once a Hero“ () by Elizabeth Moon
(first book of the “Esmay Suiza” trilogy)
Another Space Navy series with a FEMALE main character.
Beyond the Technology of the spacecraft and weapons, the story revolves around a personal struggle for identify with which you will be able to identify.
“Rissa Kerguelen” (aka “Young Rissa”) () by F. M. Busby
(the fist book of the “Rissa Kerguelen and Bran Tregare” series)
Has a FEMALE lead character.
“” () by Eric Flint
(first book of the “Ring of Fire” alternate history series)
“The Planet Savers” () by Marion Zimmer Bradley
(the first book of the “Darkover” series)
“For Love of Mother-Not” () Alan Dean Foster
(the first book in the “Humanx” series – featuring Pip and Flinx)
“Ender’s Game” () by Orson Scott Card
“Speaker for the Dead” ( – the sequel to “Ender’s Game”) by Orson Scott Card
(Both won the Hugo and Nebula Awards.)
“Weyr Search” () by Anne McCaffrey
(the first book in the “Dragonriders of Pern” series)
“The Ship Who Sang” () by Anne McCaffrey
(the first book of “The Brain & Brawn Ship” series)
“Island in the Sea of Time” () by S.M. Stirling.
(the first book of the “Nantucket” series)
“Foundation” () by Issac Asimov
(the first book of the “Foundation Series”)
Postulates the societal change, which would accompany the expansion into the stars.
The seiries won the one-time Hugo Award for “Best All-Time Series” in .
(One of the other books in the series also won a Hugo Award.)
“Dune” () by Frank Herbert
(the first book of the “Dune Series)
(Won the Hugo and Nebula Awards.)
“I, Robot” () the book of early short stories by Issac Asimov on the subject of ROBOTS in which he postulates the “Three Laws of Robotics” should be read as a basis before reading the
“The Caves of Steel” () by Issac Asimov
(the first of the “Robot” series / Lije Bailey mysteries)
These books are the source from which the movie “I, Robot” is drawn.
“Warriors Apprentice” () by Lois McMaster Bujold
(the first book of “The Vorkosigan Saga”)
After being genetically “damaged” by a bio weapon in his mother’s womb, Miles Vorkosigan overcomes prejudice to claim his birthright.
“Cross Time Engineer” series – (aka the “Conrad Stargard” series)
by Leo Frankowski
which begins with “The Cross Time Engineer” ()
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Frankow%E%%A
Its even better if you are POLISH as the main character is as well!
This was an eye opening look at how technology could transform a society, and gave some very good descriptions of simple improvements that lead to our own industrial revolution.
I guess you can tell I loved these books.
In HUMOROUS Sci-Fi here are some I would recommend:
“A Stainless Steel Rat is Born” () by Harry Harrison
(the fist book of the “Stainless Steel Rat” series)
“Envoy to New Worlds” () by Keith Laumer
(the first book of the “Retief” (galactic diplomat) series)
“Phule’s Company” () by Robert Lynn Asprin
(the first book of the “Phule’s Company” series)
Has the super-rich heir apparent of Phule Proof Munitions, become the commander of a mixed bag of aliens in the Space Legion.
“Another Fine Myth” () by Robert Lynn Asprin
(the first book of the “Myth Adventure” Series)
It revolves around a boy from Klah (hence he is a Klahd) becoming a magician with the help of his mentor a demon (dimensional traveler) from Perv (so he is a Pervect NOT a Pervert).
“The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams
In FANTASY, here are some I would recommend:
“Sheepfarmer’s Daughter” by Elizabeth Moon
(first book of the “Deed of Paksenarrion” trilogy)
It has a FEMALE main character.
“The Elf Queen of Shannara” () by Terry Brooks
(THIRD book of “Heritage of Shannara” series)
This book features a FEMALE main character.
“The Lord of the Rings” Trilogy by JRR Tolkien.
Even if you have seen the movies these books are so much more
in depth and well written to be worth your time.
“The Hobbit” by JRR Tolkien
It is the precursor to the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.
(It was the book that showed me you could read for PURE enjoyment rather than to fulfill a school reading assignment.)
Its hero Bilbo Baggins, pops up in the beginning and the end of “The Lord of the Rings”, and was the firs
Source(s): almost years reading Science Fiction & Fantasy
Over read and counting!
The Ender series and the Homecoming series by Orson Scott Card
The Hitchhiker’s Guide series by Douglas Adams
by George Orwell
I like the Matador series by Steve Perry. (Not the guy from Journey!) If you can find them. The Man Who Never Missed, Matadora, The th Step, Black Steel, Brother Death, The Musashi Flex. All good reads. For classics I like Starship Troopers by Heinlein, Dune by Herbert, The series by Clarke. A lot of people rave about The Martian Chronicles by Bradbury but I didn’t get into it that much.
A good sci fi story collection is the StarShipSofa Anthology
Paul Levinson The Silk Code
Source(s): http://www.starshipsofa.com/anthology/
http://podiobooks.com/podiobooks/search.php?catego…
You might like The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series, by Douglas Adams. The books are more humorous than most sci-fi. It’s about a man named Arthur Dent who gets taken into space by his friend Ford Prefect just minutes before the Earth is destroyed. The series is about their adventures in space.
Alice in Wonderland. that’s like an acid holiday, heavily. a number of the stuff is traditionally based, too. The Mad Hatter’s based on the fact that hat makers often went bonkers with the aid of fact they inhaled mercury vapors utilized in curing the felt they used for hats.
The Gap series by Stephen R Donaldson is awesome if you like semi-technical sci fi. Pretty much anything by him is great, if you like conflicted characters and stories with a ton of depth. Just a warning though, you will probably be depressed by the time you finish any of his books. 🙂
you’ll enjoy these (I certainly did!):
– (I know this one sounds corny, but it is really good!): Watchers I.D by Peter Lerangis. Blurb on the back of the book:
Nobody knows who the watchers are. But they are around us. They observe us. They see the things we can’t see…
Who is Eve Hardy? Is she the only child of a normal pair of parents? Or is she the offspring of a bizarre experiment that has gone horrible wrong? Eve doesn’t know. But if she doesn’t find out the truth, it will destroy her. Time is running out…
– The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. It’s about a reality TV show where two people from each state, called ‘tributes,’ must go on this TV show and are made to kill the each other until one survivor is left. They are not allowed to bring anything with them, and must make weapons by themselves out of the tress, rocks etc. They must learn to hide from others, camouflage themselves, hunt wild animals for food and kill the other people. The problem is, a main character, Peeter, is in love with one of the other girls who has been picked for the hunger games, and he does not want to kill her – he is madly in love with her, but she doesn’t know it. It’s an extremely gripping novel, and you see how people turn on each other for survival, and how they hide (they even climb trees and sleep in the branches to be away from other enemies). Here’s the blurb on the back of the book if you want to know more:
In a dark vision of the near future, a terrifying reality tv show is taking place. Twelve boys and twelve girls are forced to appear in a live event called the Hunger Games. There is only one rule: kill or be killed. When sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen steps forward to take her sister’s place in the games, she sees it as a death sentence. But Katniss has been close to death before. For her, survival is second nature.
– Prey by Michael Crichton. Blurb on the back of the book: In the Nevada desert, an experiment has gone horribly wrong. A cloud of nanoparticles—micro-robots—has escaped from the laboratory. This cloud is self-sustaining and self-reproducing. It is intelligent and learns from experience. For all practical purposes, it is alive.
It has been programmed as a predator. It is evolving swiftly, becoming more deadly with each passing hour.
Every attempt to destroy it has failed.
And we are the prey.
As fresh as today’s headlines, Michael Crichton’s most compelling novel yet tells the story of a mechanical plague and the desperate efforts of a handful of scientists to stop it. Drawing on up-to-the-minute scientific fact, Prey takes us into the emerging realms of nanotechnology and artificial distributed intelligence—in a story of breathtaking suspense. Prey is a novel you can’t put down.
Hope I helped!
Source(s): I’ve read them all and couldn’t put them down!
if you’re like me, you like banks because of his depth and his ability to create a universe with its own history that his stories can take place in.
so these are the things i’m into right now along with banks:
alastair reynolds. start with “chasm city”, then go to the epic that begins with “revelation space”. this is “space opera” at it’s finest, full of intrigue and wheels within wheels, spanning generations, and as full of gritty, brutal noir as it is of challenging ideas and deep, complex characters. it’s up there with frank herbert’s “dune” epic and even james clavell’s “shogun” epic.
richard k morgan is more techno, fast, and plot-oriented, along the lines of william gibson. start with “altered carbon”
charles stross is fun, in the spirit of harry harrison and larry niven — silliness and frantic blind-run adventures woven into solid sci-fi and tight, well-planned, twisty plots. start with “singularity sky”
i’m not usually a fantasy person, but i was surprised by how much i liked “orcs” by stan nichols. great yarn!
The Day of the Triffids – John Wyndham (you won’t sleep in the night)