Hey! So, I've read a TON of SciFi and Fantasy books, and most of them are the books that have already been suggested to me before, so I was wondering if anyone had some books that they thought were amazing that I might try. I've read A LOT of books though, so this might be difficult! =/ Oh, and I think that I should mention that I'm a 19 year old girl... that will eliminate war books and stuff. Haha, at least for me. Thanks!
Read any Philip K. Dick? No war books? So that leaves out the Lord of the Rings trilogy (and The Hobbit).
Pandora's Star, great book by Peter Hamilton. Anything by Larry Niven and Jerry Pounell (they work together a lot) such as Footfall, Lucifer's Hammer, The Mote in God's Eye, Inferno, Ring World, etc)
Alastair Reynolds, Be advised, this is HARD Sci-Fi, I couldn't get into it earlier, but then I found his books deeply engrossing, with twists and turns everywhere. The one without war, but bordering close to it, is The Prefect
Excellent recommendation; his books are all great reads. Along similar lines, I have to recommend my top 2 current SciFi authors: Iain M. Banks and Charles Stross. Anything by either of these, in my mind, clearly represent the best of contemporary SciFi. My number 3 favourite would have to be William Gibson. He's not quite as edgy as he used to be back in the Burning Chrome days, but he still is fascinatingly original.
I would second Ian M. Banks - his Sci-fi persona (as opposed to Ian Banks, his contemporary fiction name) - although his contemporary fiction is also quite acceptable. Philip K. Dick is good, as already advised. Personally I rather like the golden-age stuff - so A.E. van Vogt, Heinlein, Asimov and A. C. Clarke, although they tend to get a bit samey... especially Heinlein and his Lazarus family. Anything by Neil Gaiman is worth reading - whether it be graphic novel (e.g. Sandman) or actual novel. If you like bog-standard fantasy series, then the Trudi Canavan's "Black Magician" series is pretty average. Heroic fantasy: David Gemmell. None finer, imho. And there's also the "King's Blades" series by Dave Duncan which I quite enjoyed.
Some good recommendations here already. I would add Spin by Robert Charles Wilson (no wars or anything in this one) Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson (more of a cyber-punk novel but I found it to be really good) Raft and Ring both by Stephen Baxter (also hard sci-fi like Alastair Reynolds) Neuromancer by William Gibson
Have you read the Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin? Fucking fantastic. Although, it is taking quite a while for the fifth to be written. It was originally slated sometime around 2006... Great stuff though.
If you haven't yet read the Algebraist and Matter (both by Iain M Banks) I would highly recommend them. You might like Stephen Baxter, although his books can be little heavy on the physics side. A few other Authors to try (in no particular order): Ben Bova, John Birmingham, Arthur C Clark, Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov.
Deus X - Norman Spinrad God isn’t dead?Until you pull the plug. That’s the headline on the back cover of this intriguing book by prolific sci-fi writer Norman Spinrad. Right off the bat, you know this isn’t your average, everyday novel. Some might view Deus X as blasphemous, while others might see it as a great contemporary examination of religion. Whichever way the wind may blow, most would agree that it is controversial at best. In Deus X, he takes on several heavy-weight issues: environmental destruction; cloning, the soul, and what makes us human; and God Himself. The setting is a future Earth where we have so thoroughly damaged the planet that it is barely able to support life at all. The remnants of civilization are just hanging on and a huge number of people have traded in their bodies, or "meatware templates," for a place on the Big Board—a vast electronic network that handles almost all aspects of daily life. The crucial question that is debated in Deus X is whether or not these electronic "successor entities" have souls, are entitled to the same rights as individuals in the physical world, and have the capacity to achieve salvation. At the center of the debate is the Roman Catholic Church, whose followers have been dwindling in number for quite a long while. A papal bull must be issued to settle the question once and for all, so the Vatican becomes involved in a risky excursion into the heart of the computer system. The outcome will either save or destroy the Church. http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/sf_and_society/39934 -I liked it very much, years since I have read it, maybe time to read it again.
"Dune" - Frank Herbert. A quintessential read for a SciFi buff. Also, my favorite book of all time. "Bloom" - Will McCarthy. A very interesting twist in a dystopian future involving the fate of humanity, nano-technology and human evolution. "Brave New World" - Aldous Huxley. Another interesting twist on the future. ~String
Gotta love Footfall. Parafoil equipped baby elephant airborne troops landing in Kansas bent on interstellar conquest. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! The best part is that the science is actually not all that far out. Just reread it a couple of weeks ago.
It's hard to make a recommendation without knowing what you've enjoyed so far. Here are some of my favorites: Robert L. Forward (now deceased) was a scientist who put the science in science fiction. His short series of novels about humans venturing out into space and what they discovered there are meticulously well-crafted, scrupulously scientific (no ships going faster than light) and believable. Naturally we discover intelligent life or it would be no fun, but the types of creatures he invented are truly imaginative. One species is fractal: little tiny creatures operating almost entirely by instinct join together to form huge creatures with great intelligence, and they retain the memories of everything from the last time they were joined. James P. Hogan is also very scrupulous with his science, but he uses it to get you thinking about life and why things are the way they are. "The Code of the Lifemaker" is about us discovering a world populated by beings that appear to be machines, yet they are incredibly intricate and there's no signs of any makers in their history. Could they have evolved naturally? Meanwhile the machines, who have invented primitive organic tissue to use as their analog of technology, assume that we are organic robots left behind by a race of machines that died out. His trilogy Inherit the Stars, The Gentle Giants of Ganymede and Giants' Star make you stop and think about the origin of our own species. In his many novels, Larry Niven invented an entire universe, culminating in the Ringworld, a ring orbiting a sun, made out of the materials of all of its former planets. Being a good fraction of a billion miles in diameter, it is host to a gigantic number of species. His science is entertaining without being too rigorous (faster-than-light spaceships are accepted without much of an explanation) and the civilizations he builds are good fun. At the other end of the scale, Alan Dean Foster is the master of more whimsical sci-fi as well as fantasy. He must write about six books a year and has a huge bibliography, including several lengthy series. My favorites are the "Lost and Found" trilogy, the first story I've ever read that did a good job with a theme that's always haunted me: what if you were kidnapped by nasty aliens (to sell you as a pet or a zoo exhibit!), but ultimately rescued by kindly members of galactic civilization. You ask them if they can use their wonderful trans-light spaceships to take you back to dear old Earth, and they reply, "Of course we can! Where is this "Earth"?" He also wrote a long, humorous fantasy series about Spellsinger, a law student who finds himself in an alternate universe where animals run the place and he can make magic by singing old rock and roll songs and playing a guitar-like instrument with controls labeled "tremble" and "mass." Foster plays fast and loose with the puns and the running gags, while still spinning a great yarn about a kid who has to grow up away from home and starts to like it there. My wife is a scholar of literature who only reads "serious" stuff like Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Saul Bellow. I gave her Alan Dean Foster's most famous book, "Midworld," and she loved it. She has also read all the "Dune" books, one of the few sci-fi stories that is grudgingly acknowledged as "literature" by the mainstream. Please don't judge it by the movie versions! If you like fantasy at all, I highly recommend Robin McKinley, much more serious than Alan Dean Foster. Although her stuff is billed as "young adult" fare and I haven't been a "young adult" since 1960, I love it. Most of her protagonists are young women who are forced to find a way to make a difference, which you might find enjoyable. "Deerskin," about a lost princess and her dog, was especially moving to me as a dog lover. Someone else recommended Iain Banks, and if you like him you'll probably also like John E. Stith. They invent some amazing milieus and write good yarns about them.
Something the OP might like. I'm currently in the middle of reading the Red Mars/Green Mars/Blue Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. A 'future history' of sorts about the colonization and terraforming of Mars. Pretty good so far. A little bit of everything, space travel, biology, the odd revolution or two. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Lots of character dynamics and political intrigue, and actually a pretty good 'page turner'.
Always Coming Home is a good sci-fi book, sort of a future history of California (with its central valley flooded) ca. 6-700 years from now--the authoress is Ursula K Le Quin. It has the bonus of being not too gory either, more a social history.
