Did you like his books?

In the last year or so I have discovered so many amazing SF authors from 30s through to 90s via YouTube and Reddit.

Which authors from this time period have you recently discovered and plan to read more of?

Some authors I recently read for the first time and plan to read more of are Brian Aldiss, Robert Silverberg, and Clifford D. Simak. Some great discoveries!

Would love to hear yours and which books you plan to read next.

What did you read last month, and do you have any thoughts about them you'd like to share?

Whether you talk about books you finished, books you started, long term projects, or all three, is up to you. So for those who read at a more leisurely pace, or who have just been too busy to find the time, it's perfectly fine to talk about something you're still reading even if you're not finished.

(If you're like me and have trouble remembering where you left off, here's a handy link to last month's thread)

From what I've found out so far, it was published as a signed limited edition at the end of Feb 2024, with only 500 printed. I prefer an eBook but it doesn't seem to be available as one, and I can't find anyone who has the hardcover in stock.

I haven't been able to find any information as to whether it will be available in the future as an eBook. Does anyone know? I understand that it's set in the Ancient Shores universe - I really enjoyed the other two books set there!

I'm interested in works which explore how human culture and society might work if some aspect our biology was inherently different. Stuff like Jasper FForde's Early Riser (humans hibernate), Greg Egan's Morphotrophic (cells are autonomous and can just crawl off like a slime mold), and some of the stories in Ursula LeGuin's Changing Planes (e.g. people sometimes grow wings, or migrate with the seasons). Basically biological AUs.

I have devoured DV in a few days. I’ve read the entire F. Herbert Dune series, and I love his ideas and writing. As a big fan of philosophy and science, I have loved every minute of DV.

Are the three books of the Pandora Sequence as good? I know they’re co-written, which is where my question comes in. I don’t know anything about Bill Ransom, and have heard that Frank’s writing and ideas are watered down a little.

Are they worth a read if I loved DV?

Feel free to drop your goodreads profiles here (if you want others here to connect with you and maybe find friends this way)

Or text them privately to me (if you don't want them to be publicly visible but still wanna give it a shot in case we get along well)

Or ignore this :)

My goal is just to find people with whom I can talk about books and staying in touch via goodreads where we can see each other's journey.

I enjoy classics like Kafka, Hesse, Lovecraft, Dostoyevsky. But mostly I read fantasy and scifi. Tchaikovsky, Liu Cixin, LeGuin, Ken Liu, Clarke, Asimov, Herbert etc come to mind. I also enjoy rationalist fiction like Yudkovsky and children's books like Tove Jansson. If you think we might get along, let me know :)

For those familiar with the style and themes of Hermann Hesse's novels (especially Glassbead Game, Demian and Narcissus & Goldmund); is there any scifi novel out there that infuses that kind of storytelling with scifi topics and setting?

Just finished my previous book last night, so I need to pick my next read. I will read all of these eventually, but which one would you pick up next?

Cixin Liu - The wandering Earth

Baoshu - The redemption of time

Adrian Tchaikovsky - Children of memory

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For the background, I have read the Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy, and the previous 2 books from the Children Of Memory.

Ok, this is a fun one, I think.

My 'to read' list is out of control, there is just too much. You lot have pretty good taste in books, so I was hoping you could look this over and let me know if you have read any of these and feel it just was not worth the time. Overrated? Just a bit mid? Actually sucks!?

Hopefully a few stand-out as 'not worth reading' and I can scratch them off. Will post my results.

(Be warned there are a few non-SF titles in here).

Hold Up the Sky - Cixin Lui

Dead Astronauts - Jeff VanderMeer

Autumn - Ali Smith

The Long Sunset - Jack McDevitt

Village in the Sky - Jack McDevitt

The Doors of Eden - Adrian Tchaikovsky

The Hidden Girl - Ken Liu

Something Wicked This Way Comes - Ray Bradbury

Cave of Souls - Adrian Tchaikovsky

The Renegade - Shirley Jackson

Get Shorty - Elmore Leonard

Nova - Samuel Delany

Aurora - Kim Stanley Robinson

Eyes of the Void - Adrian Tchaikovsky

Stars and Bones - Gareth Powell

The Great Mortality - John Kelly

The Human Target - Tom King

Station Eternity - Mur Lafferty

The Invincible - Stanislaw Lem

City of Last Chances - Adrian Tchaikovsky

A Psalm for the Wild-Built - Becky Chambers

The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison

Contact - Carl Sagan

Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

Pandora's Star - Peter F. Hamilton

Money - Martin Amis

The Gone World - Tom Sweterlitsch

Legend - David Gemmell

Dragon's Egg - Robert L. Forward

The Forgotten Beasts of Eld - Patricia A. McKillip

Lock In - John Scalzi

Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro

The Mote in God's Eye - Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle

Binti - Nnedi Okorafor

The Maltese Falcon - Dashiell Hammett

Fever House - Keith Rosson

The Book of Skulls - Robert Silverberg

The Book of Strange New Things - Michel Faber

Declare - Tim Powers

Venomous Lumpsucker - Ned Beauman

Use of Weapons - Iain M. Banks

The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

The Terror - Dan Simmons

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream - Harlan Ellison

The Great When - Alan Moore

The Wood At Midwinter - Susanna Clarke

Absolution - Jeff VanderMeer

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! - Richard P. Feynman

Blindness - José Saramago

Several great additions to the sci-fi deals this month. Enjoy!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B002TXZSSK/ Iain M. Banks - Against a Dark Background

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B009ZG6YPU/ Daniel Keyes - Flowers for Algernon (SF Masterworks)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wool-Trilogy-Book-1-ebook/dp/B00873GRU4/ Hugh Howey - Silo book 1

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Shift-Wool-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B00BFUB9MW/ Hugh Howey - Silo book 2

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Leviathan-Wakes-Expanse-major-Netflix-ebook/dp/B004XCGKYQ/ JSAC - Expanse book 1

Some great sci fi, obviously influenced by Ian M Banks, but definitely not a utopian outcome from AI, intellects in this case. If you find tongue in cheek imaginative expletives amusing, this is for you. It also has some deeper themes about what it is to human, and what it is to be free. Highly recommended, and I hope thus series is continued. @johnbirmingham

There were two "world political orders" in the 20th century: the New Deal which finished in the 70s, and the neoliberal order which might have finished in 2008. We might be on the cusp of a new political order, are their any science fiction books that speculate about what might come next?

Ministry of the future by KSR comes to mind, any others?

A while back, I got into Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere books (mainly Stormlight Archive) and love them so far. While not connected, I’m tempted to read Sanderson’s “The Reckoners” trilogy. I’ve heard some ppl comparing it somewhat to “The Boys”…

However when I check the local bookstore, Renegades, (by Marissa Meyer) and it’s sequels seem to be lumped together with the Reckoners. I’ve too heard the Renegades trilogy was a very popular series.

Since I’m continuing to avoid ratings from Goodreads and Amazon, my question is which series would you recommend more?

Concept: Picking up after the end of Starfish, this book plunges immediately into the aftermath of those world-changing events and how certain people respond to them. Behemoth is spreading while forces attempt to contain/eliminate it, and certain forms of wildlife in the digital jungle that is the current version of the internet are impacting the real world in unique and troubling ways.

Narrative Style/Story Structure: Chronologically linear, Maelstrom is told from the third person limited just as the first entry in the series, it feels understandably similar in style to Starfish, though there are thankfully far fewer jarring jumps, and it flows much more smoothly. Perspective rotates through a few different primary characters and balances the different facets of the story particularly well.

Characters: Clarke and Lubin from the first installment are still with us, and we get much better acquainted with both than I was expecting. There are a couple of other minor players that we spend some time with, and the bits with Achilles (a man whose job is frighteningly plausible in its necessity in the fictional/hypothetical near future that the novel takes place in) are incredibly intriguing, well thought out, well written, and frequently terrifying in concept/prospect.

Plot: Though the reader is presented with more sub-plots to keep track of than in the first entry, Maelstrom still felt more streamlined and directed; the plot (which essentially is two primary threads that weave around each other during the story) is essentially a faithful pursuit of two relatively simply initial starting points and was never overly challenging to keep track of.

Tone: Dark, depressing, and dark again, though for differing reasons from the first novel, which was a much more personal sort of tale thanks to the isolation of Beebe station. With this entry breaking out into the wider world (both physically and digitally) Watts can present the sad state of affairs with much wider scope, though what we see can be chilling and ugly.

Overall: In contrast to Starfish, which at times felt like trying to solve a mystery while stumbling around with a blindfold on (don’t get me wrong, I highly enjoyed it), when we enter Maelstrom we are aware of essentially all of the key facts at that point. I think this shift was a positive change and allowed this second installment to make excellent use of the momentum gained in the final portions of Starfish. I also have a feeling Maelstrom received a much better bit of editing than its predecessor, which was quite welcome. If I already had my copies of the conclusion of the series, I wouldn’t hesitate to dive right in.

Rating: 4.25/5

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Hello, I'm looking for recommendations for the kind of story where the a society (presumably our own, or rather one 10 minutes into the future, but it can be more far future, hell the past, fantasy, I'm not picky when it comes to genres) is accelerating into an axiom shift from technological change (or an outside context problem, to use the term the late Banks used, e.g. hyperaliens, but the more close to home, the better).

The before/lead-up and the process itself are my main interests, the after as well (though not necessarily without at least one of the others).

Examples of what I'm looking for include Crystal Eternity or more broadly the Crystal trilogy, by Max Harms, Echopraxia and Blindsight by Peter Watts, I guess Hyperion by Dan Simmons as well to some degree.

Looking forward to your kind recommendations (even manga, anime and if allowed in the sub video interest me - come to think of it Ex Machina could be an example too -, but written literature is what I'm primarily after).

Edit: Thanks to everyone for the suggestions! Some very good ones - (un)fortunately I'd read Accelerando, Ra and Rainbows End already, but on the flip side I do suggest those to anyone intrigued by my post, if you're interested in the them, those are some very good books. Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect OTOH is way too torture porn heavy for me and I don't have shaky nerves (read that one too way back). Could have used an editor.

Anyway I think I'm gonna start with Spin but there are 5-7 others for my booklist here so thank you guys very much again!

First of all, take it with a grain of salt of what i am about to say about these two part sequel. I know a lot of you like "happy endings". But that didn't exactly how it happened. Especially for their son. I have absolutely hailed Hyperion and i believe the ending serviced fans quite adequately. THAT being said I am astonished with how much i disliked Endymion from the same writer. Especially the ending. For reasons I am going to state now:

1. Aenea going back to the future to meet Raul is not the same version of Raul of that actuality. Same for Aenea. Spacetime is nonlinear so that it "always" creates a variegation of events from each reality. The narrative was already weird with incestuous writing as it is on top of some soap opera specialituve affair that was dragged throughout the story.

2. If this ending was an idea of her knowing that time is fleeting for both of them to be "together" then her idea is not only a "plot device" of the their love story but it also sounds dumb/sucked(which is ironic bc it's Raul who has been mostly dull throughout the story). Anyway my point is that She could have freecasted to that Jovial World saving herself more than fours years of life time with Raul with the Pax being the pain in the a@# behind them.

3. As for the ending itself, for those of you thinking this happy ending has still justifyed itself to the dull writing of the main characters's love story. The writer itself(from the words of Aenea and Raul's son Petyr who has the same powers as Aenea) inadvertantly describes these two people and how much polarizing they both are.

Reminder: Bear in mind that Petyr appears to have greatly developed the powers that arise out of contact with The Void Which Binds. So he definitely has more understanding to the language of the dead and living that surpasses even her mother. Anyway he knows her mother and father more than anyone. Also notice how he describes Raul not more than an old man.

Anyway this is what Petyr said

Petyr scribes -- "My mother was a saint. My old man tells me that almost every guy used to say that sort of thing about his dead mother even way back before the Hegira, especially after a bunch of drinks in an alcohol bar, but in my case it's true. My mother was a goddamned saint.

The Pax Church beatified her, canonized her, and then tortured and killed her. And she'd known her entire life -- from the time she was a baby! -- that this end was coming for her. Nonetheless, she'd gotten pregnant by my old man, spent nine months of her time on Old Earth carrying me and then giving birth to me, another year nursing me and holding me, even baptizing me in the Mississippi River that runs by less than a mile from where this old starship is stranded forever -- and then she left me. She abandoned me. (And abandoned my old man, too, but who gives a damn about him?) She chose to FREECAST away and leave me behind and to go back to the torture and death by burning that she'd seen through her presight every second and minute of her useless life. I was just a few standard months over one year old and she left me behind forever.

My mother was a saint, you see. And a "loveless bitch". And may she burn in hell forever and may my old man join her there soon. As for me? I'm going to use one of the few gifts she gave to me -- not that she had any choice about the giving since it was in her genes -- and I will load the dead poet, my only friend the whole time I was growing up here, onto a soul stick and I will freecast my 17-year-old ass a few million parsecs away from this stinking, beautiful, boring, unpopulated, useless Old Earth and I will never come back here again."

This was his description of his father and mother.

After reading the entire Hyperion Cantos series, I want to read more from Dan Simmons. But I have been scratching my head with dillemma if I should continue reading his books after Endymion and Rise of Endymion. Given he has been inter mingling between sci fi and horror novels but i only want to read sci fi for now. Hyperion was definitely worth a read. So there is that.

Celebrate your favorite SF author(s) in the comments. Bonus points for obscure and indie authors!

My wife expects a Christmas list soon and I'm looking for a few books to blow my mind. I'm looking for sci-fi books with the biggest, most mind-blowing, imaginative/weird ideas that keep me thinking about them for a long time. Preferably standalones or short series.

I tend to enjoy existential horror, cosmic horror, and weird fiction, so elements of that are appreciated but not necessary. I do prefer space settings, but also not strictly necessary. Nor really interested in alternate history.

A few books I've read that make me feel this way:

-Diaspora (Greg Egan)

-Firefall (Peter Watts)

-House of Suns (Alastair Reynolds)

-Revelation Space (Alastair Reynolds)

-Accelarando (Charles Stross)

• (to a lesser degree, but still enjoyed) Remembrance of Earth's Past (Liu Cixin)

I’m curious to know which science fiction books you’ve encountered that were just mind bogglingly difficult to conceptualize, something that absolutely shook you to your core through the sheer immensity of the idea as an endeavor. The kinds of things that cause you to wonder at the arrogance of the author for the blatant audacity to suggest something so ridiculously monstrous in scale or implication

Trying to have my mind blasted

For a start on some I’ve read:

• Starmaker - Olaf Stapledon
• Permutation City - Greg Egan
• There Is No Antimemetics Division - Qntm
• Marrow (iffy on this, I’ll offer it) - Robert Reed
• House of Suns - Alastair Reynolds
• The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect - Roger Williams
• All Tomorrows - C. M. Kosemen
• Death’s End - Cixin Liu
• Quarantine (Currently experiencing it in this one as I read, prompting the post) - Greg Egan

I haven’t read any new releases for a while! What are your recent favourites?

I'm very intrigued by the aesthetic but since it's apparently kind of niche I don't know if I should bite the bullet.

Concept: Set in the same overall world as Perdido Street Station, this story follows a woman escaping the city of New Crobuzon following the events of the previous book. Our protagonist, Bellis, ends up being conscripted into a bit of an unwanted adventure and seeks desperately to return her life to a semblance of normalcy.

Narrative Style/Story Structure: The Scar is straightforward chronologically and told from a sometimes-shifting third person perspective that is generally focused on the primary protagonist, Bellis. As with Perdido, it’s not a difficult book to follow, though it is similarly lengthy.

Characters: Despite none of the specific characters from Perdido returning for the story, we are still surrounded by many of the same types of people; Humans, Cactacae, Khepri, Remade, and even the previously only hinted at Cray and Vampir are present, with several primary and supporting characters being sourced from different factions. The protagonist, Bellis, feels strange as a main character, as she is insular, generally closed-minded, and frequently borderline hostile, but her perspective is a solid choice for the bulk of the story to revolve around, as her mindset and emotions bleed through the pages and make the story a much more personal one than it otherwise would be.

Plot: Though not containing quite as many subplots as its predecessor, The Scar still has enough unique extra questions to pursue as the main story drives along that it never feels sluggish, despite the page count. Not everything gets resolved completely throughout the book, but nothing left open feels like it truly needed to be closed, which (as with Perdido) surprised me, as I tend to prefer things wrapped up neatly at the end of books.

Tone: Though this is the second book in the “Bas-Lag” trilogy, it has a very distinctive feel compared to the first novel. The overtly weird and strange elements are still present, but diminished so they don’t seem as dominant. The overall tone feels more adventurous and less dark in comparison, though it still isn’t cheery by any stretch of the imagination.

Overall: Primarily a tale of high-seas adventure, The Scar is also peppered throughout with bits of political intrigue, monster stories, and magic. For most authors, this would be an overwhelming amount to attempt to combine in a cohesive tale, but Mieville is a master at his craft, and all the varying elements blend to create something truly unique in the world of weird fiction. Though less grand in scope than Perdido, I felt the tighter storytelling and focus was a benefit, and resulted in a much cleaner overall product. I'd highly recommend this book, especially to those who might have tried Perdido and put it down for a variety of reasons.

Rating: 4.5/5

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Anyone else entered the giveaway for the book absolution by vandermeer on goodreads? I’ve entered it three times now and every time when it get to the time that winners are supposed to be chosen they just redo the giveaway. It says that it will email you if you win so i thought maybe i just didn’t win. But i entered a giveaway for the book called the queen and it sent me an email saying that i didn’t win. Is goodreads messing with me or am i crazy or something? Anyone else got this issue?

I have read many books of this type, including Rendezvous with Rama and (most recently) To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, and I'm looking for more along the same lines. I have read pretty much everything (both on this theme and not) written by Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, and Jack McDevitt.

The main theme I enjoy is humans (past, present, or future states of civilization) that discover some sort of alien object or objects, and the book is about their exploration and understanding of those objects. I have a strong preference for primarily space based settings (which to be fair is going to be the case most of the time for this type of theme - even when the objects are found on a planet the story will often involve space travel of some sort). I definitely prefer sci-fi over fantasy (I'm not even sure if there would be fantasy books that have this type of theme)

Thanks!

I checked on amazon when Days of Shattered Faith will be released, having enjoyed both City and House immensely.

I checked out the description on top. If you click Read More it gives you a list of other books in the series. City and House, obviously, but it also mentions a title I haven't heard about before: Lives of Bitter Rain.

I wasn't able to find any information on this one on google.

Does anyone know anything about that title?

Book number three of a eight book science fiction space opera series. I reread the well printed and well bound POD (print on demand) trade paperback self published by the author in 2019. I have all eight books in the series and am rereading them now with the number seven and eight books that I just bought from Big River.

Wow, great story with lots of character development and action. An older engineer buys a bunch of Nikola Tesla's journals in an old chest and spots a design for an "electric turbine" that was never built. He builds a working version of the electric impeller (a device that converts electricity into motion) after many restarts and has an anti-gravity device. The rest of the story concerns project funding and building various containers for the electric impeller and various peoples trying to steal the design.

This book is specifically about finding alien artifacts throughout the Solar System. And then the aliens show up and drag six huge asteroids into unstable orbits around Earth. Not good.

The writing of the story is a little bit rough, a little more editing would have been good. But for me, the story is always the most important thing. This is my second read so that makes it a five star book for me.

BTW, this is not the first time that a story has been written similar to this. Several stories have "magical" engines for space drives. A very similar book is John Varley's most excellent "Red Thunder" which uses the squeezer drive.
https://www.amazon.com/Red-Thunder-Lightning-Novel/dp/0441011624/

The reason why I like these stories so much is that it is not just the new drive device, it is also the design and work to build the container around the new device.

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars (219 reviews)
https://www.amazon.com/NEO-Near-Earth-Objects-Frontiers/dp/1073559149/

Lynn

So I watched the 2001 movie right before reading the book and really liked it. Now I'm getting 2010 and it also has a movie, albeit not as highly rated as the first one and I also found out that they changed it to Jupiter to follow the movie. Should I read 2010: Odyssey Two first, or should I follow the same order as I did first, the movie and then the book?

Edit: Thank you all for the replies. I've decided to read the book first and then watch the movie just because it is out there. I'll read the making of space odyssey after that because it looks like a long read and my 2010 book is already here.