Just wondering if anyone has any recommendations for sci-fi books which are diamonds in the rough? Not much publicity but are fantastic reads?

If you like sci-fi, which you probably do or you wouldn't be wasting your time here, I'd like to recommend a little known beauty.

The book is called "Replay" by Ken Grimwood

It's an easy read, enjoyable, I couldn't put it down once I started.

(from Amazon) Book Description:
Jeff Winston, forty-three, didn't know he was a replayer until he died and woke up twenty-five years younger in his college dorm room; he lived another life. And died again. And lived again and died again -- in a continuous twenty-five-year cycle -- each time starting from scratch at the age of eighteen to reclaim lost loves, remedy past mistakes, or make a fortune in the stock market. A novel of gripping adventure, romance, and fascinating speculation on the nature of time, Replay asks the question: "What if you could live your life over again?"

Read this book, you'll enjoy it.

A series I would recommend is by Janet Morris: Dream Dancer
Cruiser Dreams
Earth DreamsThey were published about 20 years ago and are, unfortunately, long out of print (they can be found (http://half.ebay.com/cat/buy/prod.cgi?cpid=3505624&domain_id=1856&meta_id=1) now and then on half.com). This series is the best thing Morris has written -- before she started doing shared-world stuff and techno-thrillers -- and both the characters and their universe are very strongly depicted. The Greek themes are there, of course, as in much of her writing, but the interactions of the characters (and the dawning sentience of their cruisers) are handled with a great deal of subtlety.

I think that these books went out of print because they were too "deep" for the average SF/Fantasy reader. But IMHO, they were extremely well done, and I'd rate them up there with Frank Herbert's Dune.

:m: Peace.

Anything by Theodore Sturgeon.
I think he's brilliant but most sci-fi fans i've talked to haven't heard of him.
I dont' know if he's still in print at all so he might be hard to find.

Sturgeon is excellent at creating moods and atmospheres. He leaves things to the imagination and doesn't over-explain. His main themes are humans and love. Sometimes love makes people do horrible things. Sometimes love just *is* horrible. He writes about that too - not to shock, but to show. In all this, he often brings in fantastic or science fiction elements, not to make exciting reading, but so that he can write about his subjects in a way that no writer bound by 'reality' can do. If you're looking for a very well-written, emotionally charged, disturbing book about politically incorrect subjects, then try to find a copy of Some of Your Blood . Don't expect to be entertained. Expect to be moved.

Everyone I've talked to who has read it, is convinced it's his best work. Named one of the Top 40 Horror Books of All Time by the Horror Writers Association, Some of Your Blood begins with a confidential folder belonging to army psychiatrist Philip Outerbridge. Inside this folder are the letters, memos and transcripts for a young soldier named George Smith-a quiet young man with a terrible past and a shocking secret. As Outerbridge conducts George's therapy, he gradually discovers the truth about George's traumatic childhood, his twisted romance with an older woman named Anna, and the unusual obsession George keeps hidden from the world. With the masterful touch that earned him the Hugo and Nebula awards, Theodore Sturgeon creates a character capable both of unsettling violence and irresistible humanity (Barnes & Noble (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbninquiry.asp?isbn=1401400809)). It gave me nightmares for weeks. Great call, jps.

:m: Peace.

Try "Consider Phlebas" by Ian M Banks.
Big bold space opera with a human touch.
First and maybe best of the "Culture" novels.
He also writes non scifi, as Ian Banks. Try "the wasp factory" if you want somthing really different.

Cheers Dee Cee

The 3 book Alvin maker series by Orson Scott Card is pretty good.

I came across an mpeg-1 video copy of this Turkish Star Trek feature through the use of the P2P application, KaZaA; do a search on "Turist Omer Uzay Yolunda," or "Turkish Star Trek" when using KaZaA.

The video file is about 736 meg in size.

Not surprisingly, it takes a long time to download for most people with a slow internet connection but it's worth it! This video is FUNNY AS HELL!

Here's a video review of this little-known Star Trek feature by "The Wave Magazine":

http://www.thewavemag.com/pagegen.php?pagename=article&articleid=22646

I liked Replay as well.
Theres quite an amusing film based on a similar
premise called 12.01 as well.



Other under praised books I enjoyed:


K-Pax - Gene Brewer
The Miles Vorkosigan series - Lois McMaster Bujold
The Silicon Man - Charles Platt

Have fun.

b.

For a while I was trying to get anything by Henry Kuttner, his wife, C. L. Moore, or cowritten by both. Their best book is "Fury" also known as "Destination Infinity" (I think the latter is a nontrivial edit which brings it into the atomic age), which was published in the 1940's. As with many of their works, it was cowritten by both, but published in Kuttner's name. Time has shown that their intepretation of Venus is very wrong, but that's par for the course for sci fi coming from that long ago. The story about a stagnant civilization brought back to life by the iconoclast hero even then was rather cliche, but they did a great job particularly since their world had grit that even cyberpunk novels would envy. C. L. Moore tended to write the better individual work than Kuttner did, but as in "Fury" they worked best together.

Oddly the books I enjoy the most aren't any of the great works. They are the unremarkable ones that have been on the library shelves for a few decades but that you never noticed. A light touch in scifi never wins you any awards but I enjoy it anyways.

Originally posted by Clockwood
Oddly the books I enjoy the most aren't any of the great works. They are the unremarkable ones that have been on the library shelves for a few decades but that you never noticed. A light touch in scifi never wins you any awards but I enjoy it anyways.

Recall any titles?

Hey, Iain Banks doesnt count as a diamond in the rough, hes been big over here for so long I cant actually remember. (this is the UK)

I would suggest Mary Staton, "The legend of Biel" thats rather good, but not much heard of.

Sturgeon is good, I only have one of his novels and a short story or two, I am looking for more. I think he'll be out of print by now, hes kind of old.

An author you dont hear much about even in the UK, although hes still alive and writing, is Alan Garner, author of "red Shift", "the weirdstone of Brisingamen" etc.