Following a good convo in the channel last night, I figured I'd capture some book recommendations from the community, will try to attribute but it was a pretty free flowing conversation between Will, SIrocco and myself.
Robert Heinlein (Will)
The Menace From Earth - collection of heinlein short stories has stuck with me as much if not more than his books
Stranger in a Strange Land
William Gibson (Will)
Neuromancer
Neil Stephenson (Will)
Snow Crash
Diamond Age (Deleter)
Anathem (Deleter) - long read, but had some really interesting ideas around knowledge/education and rise and fall of society
Joe Haldeman (Will) - has some very interesting stuff outside of the Forever War
Iain M Banks (Deleter)
Player of Games - interesting exploration of games, psychology, different civilizations built up around varying core principles
Consider Phlebas (Sirocco) - interesting, but terribly nihilistic at times.
Frank Herbert (Sirocco)
Dune
Other things than Dune
George R R Martin scifi (Deleter)
Tuf Voyaging
Peter Watts
Blindsight (Deleter) - can be a bit grim / nihilistic but had some interesting ideas around communication with aliens not like us.
Larry Niven (Sirocco)
Ringworld Series - Honestly the first one is probably the best; mostly due to it being a nice, neat, packaged story. It is kinda interesting to see how the main characters evolve as the years and adventures take a toll on them.
Isaac Asimov (Deleter)
Foundation - Can be a bit jarring to get into as it jumps forward decades multiple times, also the series overall was written across decades of his life. Worth a read though
[*} All the short stories - really interesting explorations of sociotechnological ideas, still extremely relevant today despite how long ago some of them were written
Adrian Tchaikovsky (Will)
Children of Time
Philip K Dick
Lots of good, weird short stories
Piers Anthony (Sirocco)
Incarnations of Immortality series - Entertaining, does get a little rote by the final two novels (Satan is being an asshat and everyone has to work together to thwart his scheming).
Arthur C Clarke (Sirocco)
Childhoods End
The Garden of Rama
Douglas Adams (Sirocco)
The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
C. S. Lewis
Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength (Sirocco) - the first one is really interesting. The second is also rather nifty. The third pivots and while still trying to complete the story, focuses on political intrigue, and kinda lost me a few chapters in.
That was a really entertaining moment in the channel.
I will say that I don't particularly recommend any of the Rama books beyond the original "Rendezvous With Rama." I happened to get the next two books for next to nothing. Childhood's end is outstanding, though. Clarke has a clean, concise... almost clinical execution of his prose, that makes it dry yet entertaining. It feels lean, and moves with purpose.
Coming in to second what Deleter said about "The Player of Games." It's a great exploration of a multitude of topics, wrapped around a game. As the opening put it so well, "The story starts with a battle that is not a battle, and ends with a game that is not a game." Highly recommended, and certainly less nihilistic than other Culture novels.
"The Use of Weapons" is pretty close to "Conside Phlebas" in terms of tone, although the pacing and structure are entirely different. It's another Culture adventure gone awry, and this one has a multitude of flashbacks, both brief and prolonged, that can make it an annoying read. It features the same wry, cutting dialogue that one would expect from the author's characters, and they have magnificent banter throughout the course of the novel. Recommended if you're patient, but I won't fault you for passing on it.
Pretty sure I'm going to read the rest of the Culture novels. I'll probably read "Excession" next, although there's no exact order you need to read them in, aside from one or two that do the most work setting up the groundwork for the universe, and its customs.
I find Heinlein's work extremely imaginative; I was rereading Starship Troopers recently, and, even if you disagree with the political conclusions and pro-military attitude, the book succeeds as a bildungsroman and is wildly imaginative science fiction throughout--powered armor, personal communicators, bionic prosthetics, all in the 50s. To the list I'd add the other juveniles and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress as really essential works. His later work feels more indulgent and less focused.
Haldeman is really known for The Forever War, which reads kind of like a response or remix of some of the ideas in Starship Troopers. It's very solid, but he's got Forever Peace and the Marsbound books too, which are worth looking into.
Gibson is also a response to earlier science fiction; my understanding from people who've thought about this deeply is that the 50s and 60s idealistic scifi didn't really resonate the same way--everyone had computers and it wasn't some kind of miracle. Stephenson started around the same time, but isn't really known until the 90's Snow Crash. Both still write today, so it's interesting going into something like Gibson''s Pattern Recognition having read Neuromancer, or picking up Seveneves and seeing him move on from the kind of parody-like tone of some of his earlier books.
Douglas Adams is also very good, but if you're interested in Hitchhiker, the BBC radio dramas are the "original" version of that story, and I feel that they land the best. The primary and secondary phases are are the original scripts, then from the tertiary phase and on they're based on the books. They're different continuities, so don't expect them to line up.
Will wrote: ↑Wed Nov 02, 2022 5:38 am
Douglas Adams is also very good, but if you're interested in Hitchhiker, the BBC radio dramas are the "original" version of that story, and I feel that they land the best. The primary and secondary phases are are the original scripts, then from the tertiary phase and on they're based on the books. They're different continuities, so don't expect them to line up.
Even though the writing in the guides is stilted (which makes sense given the original format) there are moments of flowing prose, and the overall raw creativity at work is just phenomenal. It's also nice to see seemingly random items and events come into play in the later books.
At the recommendation of a friend, I've started reading Moving Mars. Here's hoping it holds up. But I should probably finish Excession first
Becky Chambers - If you want some really cozy scifi I recommend her stuff
Psalm for the Wild Built is a different feeling story with robots up and left to go live in the woods & an alt universe with some interesting lore. I think most enjoyable if you kind of just let it wash over you, rather than read it super cerebrally.
A bit more traditional series is her Wayfarers Series, starting with "The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet".
Iain M Banks
reread Player of Games - still one of my favorite books
Use of Weapons - finally got through this, had tried 2 times years ago. It's a bit tougher of a story, some pretty dark themes, a very well titled book, imo.
Excession - this might compete with Player of Games for favorite. At one point you've got a bunch of super-intelligent AIs getting up to what amounts to basically internet chatroom nonsense, love the imagination.
Inversions - took me longer to get through again. Interesting read, especially since the Culture is only vaguely hinted at, some interesting narrative devices at play. Not ashamed to admit I think I'll have to reread at least once to get everything he is putting down.
Misc
"Hive Minds Give Good Hugs" - this one is about as silly as it sounds. Not a deep book, just fun exploring being a multi-minded individual.
Timothy Zahn's “Thrawn” Trilogy. Best star wars work there ever been? most likely.
Terry Brooks whole damn Shannara series. Starts very Tolkien-ish and in the end theres flying ships and laser weapons.
deleter wrote: ↑Thu Feb 16, 2023 3:17 am
Iain M Banks
reread Player of Games - still one of my favorite books
Use of Weapons - finally got through this, had tried 2 times years ago. It's a bit tougher of a story, some pretty dark themes, a very well titled book, imo.
Excession - this might compete with Player of Games for favorite. At one point you've got a bunch of super-intelligent AIs getting up to what amounts to basically internet chatroom nonsense, love the imagination.
I need to start over with Excession. I paused it halfway through (unusual, but I tend to get distracted by random shiny things; possibly cats or whatever). I loved seeing the minds attempt to communicate with each other, and detail how they basically sit around playing god in their own virtual realms for fun.
Use of Weapons was dangerously close to being superb. The interleaved storylines made it somewhat tough to follow at first.
