OT - I know we've discussed this before...

[Askan Nightbringer]

For a different sort of sci-fi -
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. (As Taqwus suggested)
Excellent story that, pity about the follow up books

And if Steven Hawkins is a bit much there's this other physics author called Paul Davies who seems a bit more dumbed down for guys like me

Cheers,
Askan


[This message has been edited by askan (edited 27 September 2001).]

[dmm]

If you want to learn how the Middle Ages REALLY were, read "A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century" by Pulitzer prize winner Barbara Tuchman. I loved that book. Unless you automatically detest history, you will find it fascinating. (She won the Pulitzer for "The Guns of August," which is about the start of WWI.)

[capnq]

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Here are some ideas I'm playing with:
Foundation series: Worth the effort?

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Mixed feelings; when I was a teen, the original Trilogy was my favorite novel. (I had a single volume paperback of all three books.) Rereading it as a post-college adult, it hadn't aged well. I thought the 4th and especially the 5th went downhill, but liked the 6th, which was a prequel. Haven't read any of the prequels by other authors yet.

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Dune: Read the first one, is it worth reading the rest?

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I thought the first four were awesome, and the fifth and sixth much weaker; but a lot of other people hate the 4th and like 5&6. Haven't read his son's prequels yet.

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That new Tad Williams one: Liked his previous books. Is the latest (forget name) more sci-fi?

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William's very latest is epic fantasy, published Online in bi-monthly installments at:
http://www.shadowmarch.com/main.asp

First five "Episodes" are free, the rest available by subscription only. Episode 9 is due on September 1. I like it enough that I got a Paypal account in order to Subscribe; I haven't read any of his other works.

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Something by Aasimov that I haven't read yet: Love his stuff, recommendations please.
(Anyone ever read his non-scifi book about a "pocket demon" called Arizaphael? That was
brilliant. What was it called? Would like to own it.)

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I think you mean the collection _Azazel Fantasy Stories_. I've read a few of the stories in magazines, but not the whole book.

I really enjoyed Timothy Zahn's _Conqueror's_ trilogy, which is fairly hard SF with larger-than-life characters.


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Cap'n Q
My first mod! Hypermaze quadrant
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"

[Deathstalker]

You want some REALLY good sci-fi?? Go try the 'Seafort' books by David Feintuch (sp?), incredible..All done from a 'first person' perspective..all about mans first voyage into the stars, colonization and the first contact of an alien species....loved it!


If you want really good fantasy, go try any book by Michelle West (or Melanie Rawn, or Matt. WoodRing-Stover, damn good reads)....

(or of course you could find the Deathstalker series by Simon Green, for a mixture of incredible sci-fi and fantasy!)

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"We are all...the sum of our scars"....(paraphrased) Matt. R. Stover-'Blade of Tyshalle'.

"Human existance is all imagination...Reality is no more than a simple agreement among its participants that this is where we shall meet, and these are the rules that we shall abide by."- Kevin McCarthy/David Silva "The Family:Special Effects"..

[Dragonlord]

Bit late, but I concur that the Ender books by Orson Scott Card are very enjoyable.

Also, for some interesting sci-fi / cyberpunk try Neil Stephenson.

Some oldies but goodies in fantasy: Feist's first book "Magician" , and Robert Heinlein's "A stranger in a strange world".

Best historical fiction books: all books by James Clavell.

[mac5732]

I also forgot, The Lensman Series, if you can find it, by Doc Smith. Another excellent series the "Fleet" series, The fleet was good but they quit making sequals, shame, excellent reading

just some ideas mac

[Cyrien]

I enjoyed the Otherland series greatly. I reccomend it.

[Coal]

I would recomend Weber's Crusade, In Death Ground and Insurrection. Make sure you read them in the righ order, it'l be better that way.

Also Weber's Honor Harrington series. Im not even finished with the first, but I like it already.

The Area 51 series by Robert Doherty. Good aliens visting and affecting earth and it's history.

STARFIST series by Sherman and Cragg. About Marines in the 26th century. Lots of battle, some sex, little comedy.

Rama and 2000 series by Arthur C. Clarke. Rama deals alittle with explaining god. The 2001 book and it's sequels goes a long way to explaneing the movies.

If you're a Wing Commander fan, there are several books in that universe that I would recomend.

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'Evacuate? In our moment of triumph?'
Grand Moff Tarkin, just before the Death Star blew.

We are Dyslexia of Borg, futility is resistant, your *** will be laminated.

[Taqwus]

S'more sci-fi:

Vernor Vinge's "A Fire Upon the Deep", and perhaps somewhat less well-done, "A Deepness in the Sky".

On _Dune_ -- first book is pretty good, but I know of people who've referred to one of the later ones as "Crackhouse: Dune", and I'm inclined to agree. Serious weirdness occurs later.

Niven and Pournelle's "The Mote in God's Eye" (or is it "The Mote in the Eye of God"?), which deals with contact with an... interesting alien race.

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[Kadste]

Already enough said about Weber, but you might want to read In Death Ground Last. In my opinion, by far the best.

Anyone read the Area 51 Series by Robert Doherty?

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Never Give up, Never Surrender!