Yeah, I stared Song of Ice and Fire, and I agree that it's fucking epic. Good characterization, good battles, intriguing plot, and plenty of other good stuff. Bought the whole series.

 

Tales of the Otori is a badass series but the fourth book is really just a massive epilogue and the Giraffe get's more page time than some of the really interesting characters.

 

Science Fiction books

I am looking for some really good science fictions books. Obviously anything form the Big Three doesn't need a recommendation as I will be buying them soon. At the moment I am in the mood for books where Earth is invaded, Earth is at war with aliens, Earth is part of a hegemony, etc you get the picture. HOWEVER, anything you guys deem worthy, put it down.

Books I have read:

Everything by Harry Turtledove- most of his work is centered around alternate history.

Ender's Game and its sequels

The Halo novelization of the games

That's it for my science fiction book list that I have read. As you can see, this is why I am asking for some ideas. I figure you guys have read books I haven't heard of.

 

I would recommend frank herbert, esp his non dune stuff.

 

Its not really a book persay, but the Nebula Awards make a good short story/essay book that i really enjoyed.

Website is below

http://www.sfwa.org

 

Earth invaded by aliens, eh? Well, IMO the ultimate alien invasion resistance novel is "Battlefield Earth"... IF you don't mind these three factors working against it:

- Written by Ron Hubbard; doesn't have anything to do with Scientology, though. At least nothing that I noticed.

- Turned into a stupid movie. The book is much better, of course, otherwise they wouldn't even try to Hollywood-ize it.

- No literary value. At all. It's pure fast-paced action/adventure fun, with the main character working from the inside the 'system' and trying to outsmart and outmanoeuvre a self-serving alien planet director.

Basically, if you like Independent!Harry fics, where seemingly all-powerful manipulative!Dumbledore gets taken down by our recently awoken underdog hero, you'll love this. If any of these three points bother you, better try something else... like Footfall by Larry Niven (some of the best alien invaders ever, but too many parallel plotlines drags the story a bit) or Timothy Zahn's Blackcollar series (military SF) or even Joe Haldeman's Forever War (somewhat similar to Ender's Game).

 

But but, The movie had John Travolta in it!

 

Look for David Weber. "Mutineer's Moon" and its sequels

Also, not Earth-centric, but "Shards of Honor," Lois McMaster Bujold

Larry Niven, The Known Space series.


Edited to add:
These are all hard science fiction, and Weber bases his combats and politics on real historical records.

 

Anything by Robert Heinlein, or Joe Haldeman.

 

If you haven't read them, Ender's Shadow and it's squeals are equally or even more awesome than the Ender series (Bean is much less of a pussy). I can't wait for the final fucking book damn it...

OSC's Homecoming series, despite being an allegory for the book of Mormon, is pretty damn good. I didn't know it was meant to be the Book of Mormon until after, so it isn't very obvious at all.

Jurassic Park is always a classic, as is anything else by Crichton, particularly Prey.

The Foundation series and the I Robot series are also epic.

 

Anything by Philip K. Dick. Some classic ass sci-fi.

Also, Neal Stephenson and William Gibson are full of win.

Particularly Stephenson's Snow Crash and The Diamond Age. I'm also a fan of his Baroque series, and Necromonicon.

Neuromancer is Gibson's most famous book and it's a starting point for you to get familiar with his style. From there, pick up any of his other books.

 

Yeah, it definitely weirded me out the first time I read one of his books. I grew to like his style though, and now he is one of my favorite authors.

If I had to say which one is better, I would probably go with Neal Stephenson though.

His Snow Crash is a classic, and The Diamond Age is also great, but doesn't get the attention that Snow Crash does.

 

What's your favorite genre of science fiction? Hard SF? Space Opera? Dystopia?

For Hard SF, check out authors: early Stephen Baxter (later work is more opera), Greg Bear, Kim Stanley Robinson, David Brin, Ken Wharton.

Other work you might find of interest: Heinlein is classic--several titles here are "must reads." (Stranger in a Strange Land, Starship Troopers, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress). John Wright's The Golden Age trilogy, P. F. Hamilton's work. Jeff Noon's Vurt series is fun, K. Jeter's non-franchise work (Noir is good). Joe Haldeman's Forever War. Zelazny's Lord of Light. Anything by Dick or Neil Stephenson. Early work by Gibson. (His later stuff was meh).

Personally, I find Orson Scott Card's stories to be crap (I couldn't stand Ender's Game), but to each his own.

 

You are nuts.

The only O.S. Card book it's worth your time reading is Ender's Game, though Speaker had it's moments. I've read one of his non-EG novels and one or two Bean novels. Rubbish. Cited for awesome: http://xkcd.com/304/

Crichton writes exciting novels that fail on science. His pseudo-science is just a plot device to drive the characters forward. It also causes alarm and controversy from crying 'real life' scientists which generates media attention and increases sales. I wouldn't call it scifi at all. It's thriller.

Asimov's Foundation series is awesome. Though I must admit that it's a little dry.

Here's a short story for the OP, Neil Gaiman's, How to Talk to Girls at Parties. It's very different to normal scifi and told from the point of view of a confused and hormonal young man. You can read it as an allegory if you want. It's quite short, there's an audio and a text version on the site. http://www.neilgaiman.com/p/Cool_Stuff/Short_Stories/How_To_Talk_To_Girls_At_Parties

Baen's Free Library is always worth a look for scifi. They seem to attract a lot of hard military scifi, as well as alt-histories, and an assortment of other scifi/fantasy fiction. http://www.baen.com/library/defaultTitles.htm

David Weber's Honor Harrington series seems to get a lot of respect, though I wasn't a fan. Here's the first book. http://www.webscription.net/p-304-on-basilisk-station.aspx

That alt-history series 1632 is a bit of fun. A west-Virginian mining town in the year 2000 is transported back to Germany, 1632. http://www.webscription.net/p-379-1632.aspx

And then there are the 'greats' like:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_C._Clarke
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Gibson
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Bradbury
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Niven - his Ringworld series is the basis for the 'halo' in Halo.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Stephenson
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick

Heck, anyone who makes it into any two (esp. all three) of these lists:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Hugo_Award_winning_authors
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Nebula_Award_winning_authors
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Science_Fiction_Hall_of_Fame

Yak.

 

I like Space Opera and Military ScFi the most. I like stories like Halo, Battlestar Galactica, World War series, etc.

Thanks for all the recs. I will be making a trip to Barnes and Noble in a couple days with my new list

On that note; has anyone else heard that Barnes and Noble is going out of business? Someone mentioned it to me and I just can't see it happening.

 

If you're familiar with the backstory, you can do a hell of a lot worse than picking up some of the Warhammer 40k novelizations. I know, I know, I'm supposed to do the sci fi novel snob thing and recommend Frank Herbert or William Gibson or someone along those lines, but I've recently read Grey Knights and Fleshworks and thoroughly enjoyed both. So sue me.

 

A) Who the fuck reads sci-fi for realistic science ?
B) OSC is a mediocre author who writes awesome books. Shadow is better than Game, in my opinion. His children aren't at all children, and I couldn't care less. The Ender series starts getting very dry, unless you read it philosophically. Then it's a bit of a mindfuck. The Bean series is just fucking awesome. Totally unrealistic, but awesome. And the Book of Mormon parallel series is awesome, except for the last book.

However, his Pastwatch series if fucking awful, mainly because he's the biggest apologist for racist bastards ever

 

No, you!

Yak.

 

The troubles with Crichton isn't so much that his knowledge of the science is rubbish as that he lacks the integrity to say so. His latest anti-global-warming story is a case in point--he gets trotted out as a subject "expert" simply because he wrote a sensationalized piece with questionable literary value and zero scientific value. Yet apparently his opinion counts more in the public's eye than that of people who have devoted their entire careers to study of the phenomena.

He's essentially the guy who's "not a doctor but I play one on TV".

I agree completely about what you say about OSC though. Except where you write "awesome," I'd put "crappy."