[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Let’s do a “sci fi” thread. (Page 1 of 4)
Posted: 9/7/2025 10:59:20 PM EDT
|
Just went through the last 2 books in the Three Body Problem again The series is a fucking masterpiece. Even if rough at a few points. My list: The Martian Project Hail Mary Artemis Rama Seveneves Snow crash Cryptonomicon Starship troopers Mote in gods eye. Red mars Children of time. Jurassic park The fall of reach (not hard sci fi) Contact harvest (not hard sci fi) Like the first seasons of the expanse but it ruined the books for me. The Outer wilds video was unbelievable Mass effect was an experience of a lifetime. What am I missing? |
|
Quoted: Just went through the last 2 books in the Three Body Problem again The series is a fucking masterpiece. Even if rough at a few points. My list: The Martian Project Hail Mary Artemis Rama Seveneves Snow crash Cryptonomicon Starship troopers Mote in gods eye. Red mars Children of time. Jurassic park The fall of reach (not hard sci fi) Contact harvest (not hard sci fi) Like the first seasons of the expanse but it ruined the books for me. The Outer wilds video was unbelievable Mass effect was an experience of a lifetime. What am I missing? red rising series |
|
Dinosaur Beach, Galactic Odyssey, Catastrophe Planet, and the original Bolo stories, by Keith Laumer Sinister Barrier, Three to Conquer, Next of Kin, Men, Martians and Machines, and The Mindwarpers, by Eric Frank Russell The Barsoom novels, especially the first three, by Edgar Rice Burroughs. |
|
Anything by Dan Simmons Also anything by Peter F Hamilton 2001 series by Arthur C Clarke Gentle Giants of Ganymede series by James P Hogan. Actually have a couple extra books by him that I haven’t gotten around to reading yet. I’m leaving a lot out. If I get a minute I’ll do a download. |
|
Many good suggestions here. I will add anything by Niven. Anything by Pournelle. Anything by Heinlein. Anything by Drake. Anything by Zelazny. Baen was a source of a lot of good SF back in the day. eta- geez, I forgot all about Gibson and Brin, which reminds me of Walter John Williams. |
|
Quoted: Curious why Dune et al. is rarely mentioned in these kind of book threads, either here or elsewhere. |
|
Quoted: I personally don't mention it because I don't like the Dune books that much. Herbert had great worldbuilding and wonderful ideas, but his prose is a little painful to read. |
|
Quoted: Just went through the last 2 books in the Three Body Problem again The series is a fucking masterpiece. Even if rough at a few points. My list: The Martian Project Hail Mary Artemis Rama Seveneves Snow crash Cryptonomicon Starship troopers Mote in gods eye. Red mars Children of time. Jurassic park The fall of reach (not hard sci fi) Contact harvest (not hard sci fi) Like the first seasons of the expanse but it ruined the books for me. The Outer wilds video was unbelievable Mass effect was an experience of a lifetime. What am I missing? The Halo books (and really the whole non-game backstory lore) are fantastic and the producers of the TV show missed out on a ton of great material to put into the show if they had simply spent a week reading them. The space battle over Reach would've made a whole episode and shown how serious the Covenant were as bad guys. The Halo lore is far better and more interesting than the games that spawned it. |
|
Saw a mention of James P. Hogan. I spent a few hours drinking beer with him at the hotel bar during a convention in the late-'90s. Didn't discuss anything of real substance, just drinking and talking. Probably looked odd to see a Sci-fi author drinking with some dude dressed like Ace Frehley at a table in the corner of the bar. Really nice guy. I should probably read his books. |
|
Quoted: I'm slogging through Atlas Shrugged right now. Good ideas with crappy writting. Same with most of the Ann Rice novels. I wasn't aware vampires were such whiny, teary pussies. I think one of your books will be next on my list. I know you said physical media doesn't get you much so I might buy a handful to start with. Atlas shrugged had 200 pages of gold. To bad the book was like 1200 pages long. |
|
Quoted: Just went through the last 2 books in the Three Body Problem again The series is a fucking masterpiece. Even if rough at a few points. My list: The Martian Project Hail Mary Artemis Rama Seveneves Snow crash Cryptonomicon Starship troopers Mote in gods eye. Red mars Children of time. Jurassic park The fall of reach (not hard sci fi) Contact harvest (not hard sci fi) Like the first seasons of the expanse but it ruined the books for me. The Outer wilds video was unbelievable Mass effect was an experience of a lifetime. What am I missing? https://www.archive.org/details/OTRR_Dimension_X_Singles When you listen through these, if you've never heard them, you will start to see where they set foundations and touchpoints for later sci fi. There's also somer eally good stuff in it. You also get to see how it's not exactly like the deconstructionists say it is, all happiness and light and "man conquers all." It most certainly is not. |
|
Quoted: Slan and Slan Hunter by Ae Van Voght, a\nd anything by David Brin, the uplift triolgy and the Postman ruined by Kevin Costnrer but the book is fantastic. Agreed - the Brin book "The Postman" is a great read. The awful "movie" shares so very little with the awesome Source. Like how "World War Z" went from a great best seller Zombie Fiction to a shitty flick. Bigger_Hammer 
|
|
Welcome to our malevolent AI overlords... Bigger_Hammer
|
|
I really enjoyed the Lost Fleet series. Quoted: The Expanse series by Corey Pandora’s Star series by Hamilton Looking Glass series by Ringo, and a bunch more. Our very own Rik Writer has several worthy ones I've been reading through Rick's books the last few months, good stuff 
|
|
Armor by John Steakley Pip and Flix series by Alan Dean Foster is a large series. I liked it but found it a bit repetitive towards the end. And although more fantasy than pure scifi, Larry Correia’s Monster Hunter International series, Grimnoir Chronicles series, and Saga of the Forgotten Warrior series are all enjoyable. I literally just found a bunch of quick and dirty scifi on Youtube with the HFY (Humans, F’ck Yeah!) series of vids AI voiced, stories and concept which I believe are originally from Reddit somewhere, that range from very good for a few to absolute trash. Pure bubblegum and only 40ish min long each but I liked it for a quick dose of scifi, along with usually blue skinned hot women and humans kicking ass, lol. A guilty pleasure for me the last two weeks. |
If you like Michael Crichton’s near term sci fi first up, I suggest Michael Crichton  but second up, a guy named Warren Fahy is really good. Fragment and Pandemonium are quite good, and written well. He also has a dystopic (think 1984 updated for the current era) book called Magenta that is good.
|
|
The Golden Age trilogy by John C. Wright Metaplanetary/Superluminary by Tony Daniel The Continuing Time novels by Daniel Keys Moran Blindsight by Peter Watts Vacuum Flowers by Michael Swanwick Voice of the Whirlwind by Walter Jon Williams The Dying of the Light by George RR Martin(From back when he was a science fiction author) All of Heinlein's "Juveniles", which aren't juvenile, they just don't have sex and cursing and feature teenage boys as protagonists. |
|
The Childe Cycle series (Dorsai) by Gordon Dickson The Night's Dawn Trilogy by Peter F Hamilton The Fleet series by various authors (bunch of short stories tied together in a common universe) The Gap Cycle by Stephen R. Donaldson The Starfire series by David Weber and Steve White The Draka series by S.M. Stirling |
|
Quoted: Yeah, I didn't like Dune and never finished the book. Quoted: Quoted: I personally don't mention it because I don't like the Dune books that much. Herbert had great worldbuilding and wonderful ideas, but his prose is a little painful to read. Yeah, I didn't like Dune and never finished the book. I actually liked 'Dune' a lot, but I didn't even finish the second one. Somehow the magic didn't continue. |
|
Quoted: I'm slogging through Atlas Shrugged right now. Good ideas with crappy writting. Same with most of the Ann Rice novels. I wasn't aware vampires were such whiny, teary pussies. I think one of your books will be next on my list. I know you said physical media doesn't get you much so I might buy a handful to start with. I like Rand, but she is as verbose as any other Russian novelist. If you'd like to explore the ideas without the tedious storytelling, try some of her nonfiction, like 'The Romantic Manifesto' or 'Philosophy, Who Needs It.' |
|
Quoted: I actually liked 'Dune' a lot, but I didn't even finish the second one. Somehow the magic didn't continue. The real secret is that the first three books are just a set-up for your mind to be blown by book #4. Lots of similarities to what's happening in our current political climate, if that would intrigue you any further. The second book is somewhat slow, but #3 gets much better. Another vote for other books members here turned me on to in the past: Watts' Blindsight series is very deep, but I'll have to reread both again to fully wrap my brain around all the nuances and implications. I'm hoping there's another book/s in the series coming down the road at some point to wrap the story up. +1 on Steakley's Armor which is also very good, somewhat of a spiritual successor to Heinlein's Starship Troopers. It would make a great movie, if Hollywood ever decided to dump the woke BS and make good movies again... The Expanse book series is epic, and works well with the video series, as both formats have advantages that can mutually compliment each other. |
|
This! Also Time Enough for Love, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, To Sail Beyond the Sunset, well, anything by Heinlein. |