<p>By popular request…let’s talk science fiction and fantasy!!! </p>
<p>I’ve been a sci-fi junkie since age ten when I spent a whole summer at my dad’s reading every Robert Heinlein book I could get my hands on. </p>
<p>I read a ton…lately more fantasy (which I used to mock–pretty low for a scifi fan)
which to my mind has gotten “better” but maybe I just pulled the stick out. </p>
<p>Sci-fi</p>
<p>If you haven’t read the Liaden Universe series by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller (married couple) you haven’t lived. These get regularly re-read at my house. Be careful ordering online as some books get put into compilations and you have to look in the notes to figure out what books are included but ALL worth reading. There aren’t a ton of “aliens” here but there is one race that I hold near and dear (non-sf geeks please stop reading NOW) is what I can best describe as the very long living Zen Buddist turtles. As an old genre professor used to say, aliens exist to teach us what it is to be human. </p>
<p>Anyway all of you will have old favorites to list but here are my NEW FAVORITE fantasy authors/series.</p>
<p>Patrick Rothfuss…two amazing books out Wise Man’s Fear and The Name of the Wind…waiting with bated breathe for number three. NOTE the first 50 pages turned me off and I was told by two people to suck it up and give it another shot and they were SO RIGHT!</p>
<p>Jacqueline West…starting with the Hidden City which is one of my favorite first novels ever. There are (IIRC) three series connected to this world and like 16 books. My best gf and I ABSORBED the main series …some of the other series (the Hunt etc) are harder reads. </p>
<p>Michael Sullivan wrote a series and now is in a prequel series for the Riyria Cronicles or Relevations…the first book here started as an online self pub and got picked up and he now has 5 books…I read them all in about 2.5 weeks (the last came from Amazon on Monday and kept me up until the wee hours). </p>
<p>OK…your turn…give us your old stand-bys and newly discovered SF&F!</p>
<p>I really enjoy Heinlein, particularly the jingoistic, naive sensibility of Starship Trooper and the like. I reread them. </p>
<p>Larry Niven, especially Ring World. Harry Harrison’s Stainless Steel Rat series. I could list dozens. </p>
<p>I suppose if I had to pick a favorite it would be Andre Norton’s The Zero Stone and The Uncharted Stars. She was able to bring a depth to the relationship between the putative hero Jern and his telepathic, etc. “cat” Eet. These books have largely faded from view but they’re great reads. She makes you feel Eet, and draws out a peculiar and deep relationship between Eet and Jern which you eventually understand.</p>
<p>I could probably list 100 of these books with only a modicum of thought. I’m less interested now because the genre has moved more into fantasy.</p>
<p>Triple posting in my own thread to bump the count and add David Brin in older SF and Tanya Huff who has done a wide variety of good work in sf (the Valor series-space opera/military), fantasy (including a series called the Keepers Cronicles which made me want to move to Newfoundland) and even urban fantasy.</p>
<p>The Wool series by Hugh Howey has probably been my favorite set of books to come out within recent history. It’s a very rich world with some wonderful twists. Currently the collection of the first five books has 6200 reviews on amazon with an average of 4.7. The Shift series, the next set of books were also really good. He’s currently coming out with the conclusion to the series, Dust.</p>
<p>Lergnom, I would love to see some new SF too but there sure isn’t much I have seen. If you like post-apocalyptic try Wool by Hugh Howey.</p>
<p>I do find the newer fantasy less “sword and sorcerer” lately some of it is downright gritty…I actually put down a very well regarded series by Mark Lawrence that was too rough.</p>
<p>For whatever reason my elementary school library had a pretty good collection of Andre Norton. I soaked it all up, it was not like anything else in the library! Also read all Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke.</p>
<p>I love Julian May’s “Jack the Bodiless” and related books (the Galactic Milieu series). Must say I absolutely loathed the slightly related Saga of the Pliocene Exile – have tried them more that once and find them just awful. Frustrating given how much I like the Galactic Milieu’s, but there you have it.</p>
<p>I adore Lois McMaster Bujold and all things Vorkosigan. As an aside, if you are a fan and haven’t seen this, check out this Barrayar Pinterest! </p>
<p>Last year I read Among Others by Jo Walton, which is fantasy with a sci-fi loving protagonist. Since it is set around the 1970s, there is a long list of 70’s sci fi books and authors mentioned. I made a list of them all from the book and started reading my way down the list. Got through about half a dozen books (Delany, Zelazny, and a few others). But haven’t kept going, finally decided there is a reason they aren’t still very popular 30 years later…</p>
<p>So glad this thread got started! I was the kid who made my way through the entire sci-fi section of the public library, book by book, and was a huge Heinlein fan. But unless you count some novels that dabble in time travel, I think the last true sci-fi book I read was one of those annual short story compilations that kept me company during middle of the night infant feedings (and she’s 22 now–yeah, it’s been a while). So it’s great to get some recommendations. Maybe I’ll shake up my book club by choosing a sci-fi book next time it’s my turn!</p>
<p>I too have read some fantasy, though I’m pretty picky in that genre. Loved all the Game of Thrones books, etc. But I think sci-fi appeals in a very different way. Okay, off to the library!</p>
<p>See some favorites of mine - I’m addicted to the Vorkosigan books and the Liaden Universe. I like Connie Willis very much though I thought her last two books (The Blitz pair) were a bit of a slog. Other women sci fi writers I like a lot are Elizabeth Moon and Ursula LeGuin. Martha Wells has written some fun books too.</p>
<p>Did David Weber’s Honor Harrington series get mentioned? Brash female protaganist in this novel of her times–promotions and demotions and near death experiences-- in the space navy with aliens and lots of politics (dumb supervisors and evil nepotisim included!). Probably 8 in this series. Plus TREECATS.</p>
<p>We probably can’t talk much about Ender’s Game since it is the monthly CC book club read, but I thought Card had ONE good book in him and that was it. Although I will concede that I did kind of like Speaker for the Dead. But have found all the rest to be derivative, feels like he is just trying to continue to milk the one great idea… read all of his books for some time, but finally gave up on him.</p>
<p>I had read some Le Guin before, and read “Lathe of Heaven” as part of that 70s list I was working on. I think it was my favorite of the ones I read on that list so far.</p>
<p>I tried an Honor Harrington and didn’t get hooked… but might try again based on your recommendations.</p>
<p>Has anyone read Jack McDevitt? I really liked the Priscilla Hutchinson books (the “Academy” series). I still read all he puts out, but liked those the best. I think maybe he is finally adding a new one to that series this year.</p>
<p>I’ve read MacDevitt’s Engines of God, Chindi and deep Six with Priscilla “Hutch” Hutcherson…and liked them…give Honor Harrington another read intparent …Honor is a bit more military rather than academic but you’d probably like her.</p>
<p>New SF that Amazon reminded me I liked: Sarah Hoyt…Dark Ship Renegades series and James Caliban’s Expanse series. </p>
<p>Another good new fantasy series was Brent Weeks Black Prism series. </p>
<p>I’ll have to go home tonight and check my bookcases…I know there are more…</p>
<p>Can you tell I love a series? haha Something I thankfully passed on to my daughter.</p>
<p>I like junk food fantasy ( an easy read) …all Terry Brooks books. I liked Robert Jordan until by book 10 there were so many characters and subplots I got lost.</p>
<p>Intparent, the CC book club discusses books once every <em>two</em> months. This Oct 1, we begin our discussion of the duo War of the Worlds and Ender’s Game.</p>
<p>I didn’t want to write yet another long post but I see no one has mentioned some of the keystones of the genre. </p>
<ol>
<li>Asimov’s Foundation trilogy. If you don’t like this, don’t bother with scifi.</li>
<li>Frank Herbert’s Dune. The sequels run from meh to blech but the original is one of the towering achievements and stands with the best books of the 20thC. I read it in one day the first time. The book devours you as you devour it.</li>
<li>Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles. Eerily absorbingly mysteriously wonderful.</li>
</ol>
<p>I could go on but to list a more “lost” classic, try the Cities in Flight series (in order, beginning with They Shall Have Stars) by James Blish. The kind of big novel scifi produced. </p>
<p>Another interesting “set” is Philip Dick’s Time Out of Joint paired with L.P. Davies’ The Artificial Man - because they hit similar themes of life being manipulated around you. Many of us likely remember Artificial Man from some junior high class. It’s really good.</p>
<p>I do love Dune. I had read it in my teens, but read it aloud to D2 when she was about 13 (we were still reading aloud until she was about 15!), and she loved it.</p>