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sci-fi recommendation?

asthmatic camel said:
Enders Game is average, the sequels are dreadful. Card even rewrote Enders Game as seen from from Bean's point of view.

:deadhorse
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Yeah, I was a little underwhelmed by Ender's Game, despite Card's accurately predicting blog culture. And was it just my impression, or did he spend a disproportionate amount of time describing Ender and some of the other boys gettin' nekkid? Once or twice I could see, given the setting... but Card seemed to really like the idea of his child protaganists going starkers, and made a note of it a few too many times.

I'm just sayin'...
 
You don't want to get me started on the putrid piece of monkey feces that was Ender's Garbage.... grrrrr.
 
Buckaroo said:
Yeah, I was a little underwhelmed by Ender's Game, despite Card's accurately predicting blog culture. And was it just my impression, or did he spend a disproportionate amount of time describing Ender and some of the other boys gettin' nekkid? Once or twice I could see, given the setting... but Card seemed to really like the idea of his child protaganists going starkers, and made a note of it a few too many times.

I'm just sayin'...
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I had the unfortunate experience of reading Card's fantasy Hart's Hope. I thought it was a pedophile's wet dream of adults raping/seducing kids barely into puberty thinly disguised as a story about hate and vengeance. I never finished the book.
 
How about Alistair Reynolds? Revelation Space, Redemption Ark, Absolution Gap, Chasm City.

I thought they were pretty good, though it did take me a while to really get into them.
 
Loss Leader said:
I realize it's prosaic to say so, but William Gobson's Neuromancer is just about as good as any novel - sci-fi or otherwise - ever written. It also may be the most important sci-fi novel of the last 30 years.
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Months later I find this thread, and already someone's mentioned it. Great novel, especially if you like detective fiction, or mohawks.
 
Pipirr said:
On the subject of the Matrix totally ripping off William Gibson, Second Life totally ripped off Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson.

By which I mean "was inspired by".

It also had a very cool pizza delivery business model.
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How closely does Second Life follow Snow Crash? Does it kick you off the server for hours if you lose a swordfight, and can you use it to brainwash people? If so I'm in...
 
gaiapan said:
How about Alistair Reynolds? Revelation Space, Redemption Ark, Absolution Gap, Chasm City.

I thought they were pretty good, though it did take me a while to really get into them.
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Another vote for Reynolds; great space opera by a working scientist who knows his stuff.

I don't think anyone's mentioned Vernor Vinge yet, his books are worth a read.
 
Besides many other authors mentioned here, I like Norman Spinrad, one of the "New Wave" SF writers who got his start in the 60s. His protagonists are usually pretty together, though not Heinlein uber-competent. The plot often involves some area of their life that Our Hero hasn't examined well enough, and the Bad Guys get their hooks into him/her thereby. Our Hero triumphs by understanding themselves better & turning the Bad Guys' plot back on them. It sounds kinda touchy-feely when I describe it that way, but it's not.

I also used to read a lot of Piers Anthony, but I think I got tired of the preciousness and puns. He mostly does his Xanth fantasy books these days.

Then there's Cordwainer Smith, who I am not sure how to begin to describe. Nesfa Press has his one novel (under the Smith name) and an omnibus of his short stories.

Theodore Sturgeon must not go unmentioned either.
 
Gilmar said:
I also used to read a lot of Piers Anthony, but I think I got tired of the preciousness and puns. He mostly does his Xanth fantasy books these days.
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I was a huge Piers Anthony fan for several years, starting around 6th grade. Either his writing got worse (he was pumping out around 3 novels per year), or I outgrew it. I've been afraid to re-read some of my favorites (Incarnations of Immortality, Aprentice Adept, early Xanth) for fear of finding out it's the latter.
 
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