Welcome to ASFN Fan Forums! We're glad to have you here. Please feel free to browse the forum. We'd like to invite you to join our community; doing so will enable you to view additional forums and post with our other members.
Registered Members don't see these ads. Register now it's free!
Many have recommended me to Ender's Game but it seemed oddly commercial and flat to me. I was expecting something a bit more high-minded.
Strangely enough, one of the best written sci fi novels I've read in years was a trilogy for the Star Wars: Expanded Universe line of backs. I figured they'd just be pap, but Zahn created a character for those books that is easily more three-dimensional than any George Lucas created. The author also has an excellent facility for describing ships, battles, strategies, all of which make this book more like a World War II battle-by-battle recount than a science fiction novel.
There's still a bit of the corniness of Star Wars there, but as someone who struggles with the science fiction genre, I'm still comfortable recommending these books to my more elitist friends.
As something more in the traditional science fiction category (i.e. not fantasy), Michael Crichton's Timeline was a real mind blower. If you like quantum physics, try that one out.
I'm not really certain how to classify it, but Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle is a real trip and a bit frightening.
Cripes. I can't remember the name of that time-travel book that everyone was hot about on ASFN a year or so ago. It's an older book....Flashback? No. Something like that. Really good.
I'm sure someone can step in and tell you what it was, Matt.
EDIT: It's called "Replay." Get it. Now.
EDIT II: Seriously. What are you waiting for. Go get "Replay." You'll thanks me later. Go.
__________________ America cannot have an empire abroad and a Republic at home.
Last edited by Pariah; March 7th, 2008 at 02:47 PM.
Actually I have read Michael Crichton's Timeline and thought it was good. I've read most of his books.
I've read a bunch of Michael Chrichton, and I don't like them very much. He starts his books with a great premise, but just can't write an ending. They all end abruptly without a resolution.
Listen to Pariah, get "Replay" by Ken Grimwood. You won't be disappointed.
"The Wheel of Time" series by Robert Jordan is fantastic. There is only one book left and 11 already written.
For a series that is complete I would recommend "The Death Gate Cycle" by Margret Weiss and Tracy Hickman it's 7 books.
Chaplin is spot on about "Song of Fire and Ice" fantastic series but incomplete.
Raymond E. Feists "Magician" saga is also a great read and will suck you into his books and his world.
"The Sword of Truth" series by Terry Goodkind is decent ,entertaining, and complete.
And you can never fail with the old school "Dragonlance" books. "The Chronicles" and the "Legends" trilogies are IMO some of the best fantasy books ever written.
For Sci-fi:
I really enjoyed the "Ender Saga". Gads just a high-brow.
If you are willing to read some single books then I would recommend anything by Robert Heinlein and you have to read "Cat's Cradle" by Kurt Vonnegut and "Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes. Classic's all of them.
The "Shadows of the Empire" series is what I'm sure Gad was talking about when it came to Star Wars books. I highly recommend them.
If you want to read a series that constantly has you going "WTF?" then I would recommend L. Ron Hubbard's "Mission Earth" series. Very well written and no scientology crap.
__________________ "I carry a gun because a cop is too heavy".
Tetris Champion!
Linear Mode
