The Best Science Fiction Books (According to Reddit) • Hacker News Board

Re: The Best Science Fiction Books (According to Reddit)

#131

Post by jon_dahl » Fri, Sep 09, 2011, 5:20 PM UTC

neutronicus wrote: post #9

davedx wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read the 6 books by Frank Herbert, skip the other spin offs by his son and the other guy - they're terrible in comparison.

I never though much of Dune 2-5 either, but I guess I'm in the minority on this one.

It took me two or three tries, but now I put 2-6 up there with the first book.

I think the reason people have trouble with 2-6 is that they're ultimately a reversal or deconstruction of the Hero myth. The first book is a fairly typical "Rise of the Superhuman Hero" tale, and that's why it's accessible. Book 2-6 explore the dark side of this myth, which is why they're unique, somewhat inaccessible, and really interesting.

Re: The Best Science Fiction Books (According to Reddit)

#132

Post by brown9-2 » Fri, Sep 09, 2011, 5:22 PM UTC

andrewparker wrote: post #55

jtbigwoo wrote: post #25

I was pleasantly surprised to see two Neal Stephenson books on the list, but why did the second have to be Anathem? I thought Cryptonomicon and The Baroque Cycle were much better books. Anathem's plot seemed like book-nerd wish fulfillment. Of course I still read all thousand pages of Anathem in, like, four days. :)

favorite stephenson books in order: 1. snow crash 2. diamond age 3. cryptonomicon 4. zodiac 5. baroque cycle

is Anathem kept off your list on purpose ? :)

Re: The Best Science Fiction Books (According to Reddit)

#133

Post by colomon » Fri, Sep 09, 2011, 5:24 PM UTC

gcv wrote: post #125

What? No mention of Lois McMaster Bujold and her excellent Vorkosigan series? Bujold won four Hugo awards for her work, just behind Heinlein (who won five), and I'm always surprised that she isn't better known.

No Connie Willis (11 Hugos!) either, and Roger Zelazny represented by the fantasy series Amber rather than the almost universally recognized as superior science fictional Lord of Light? There are a lot of good books on that list, but a lot of strange choices, too.

Re: The Best Science Fiction Books (According to Reddit)

#134

Post by mathattack » Fri, Sep 09, 2011, 5:32 PM UTC

Thanks for sharing

Re: The Best Science Fiction Books (According to Reddit)

#135

Post by Confusion » Fri, Sep 09, 2011, 5:35 PM UTC

Alex3917 wrote: post #88

rgrieselhuber wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you offer some examples? I was surprised by this statement.

So I think the fundamentalist christian thing is pretty self explanatory if you've been paying attention. In terms of Jewish culture, it's not really a secret that most of Hollywood, the media, and much of progressivism and culture in general is organized around liberal jewish values. I'm not really an expert on why this is, but from what I can see protestantism sort of hit its high water mark shortly after WWII. Aro…

  it's not really a secret that most of Hollywood, the media,
  and much of progressivism and culture in general is
  organized around liberal jewish values.

Cross 'jewish' and that line make sense. There is nothing specifically 'jewish' about those values. If anything, they're Greek. We don't owe a lot to the pre-Socratic societies, apart from them inspiring the Greeks to their greatness. In Western civilization, everything after that was inspired by what the Greeks made of what came before them.

Re: The Best Science Fiction Books (According to Reddit)

#136

Post by colomon » Fri, Sep 09, 2011, 5:35 PM UTC

jonnathanson wrote: post #37

latch wrote: post #10

Dune is great..in fact, the original 6, except maybe God Emperor, are all great. Hyperion is a good book, as is the 2nd in the series The Fall of Hyperion. However, the two last books are really quite bad. Personally, i found Ilium+Olympos to be his best work. I found the Culture novels disappointing. Except for Consider Phlebas and maybe Excession, you quickly realize that they are pretty much gods and that there's…

Something Dune accomplishes really well -- and which very few sci-fi books or movies have ever pulled off quite as effectively -- is weaving a lot of background, and culture, and esoteric terminology, into the story without disrupting the story's flow. There aren't lengthy, disjointed sidebars about what X means, or why Y exists. Instead, X and Y are woven into the narrative via context, allowing the reader to pick u…

"Regardless, the book has been absolutely foundational to the genre. Nearly every convention of the modern space opera can be traced back to Dune."

Examples, please? I haven't read Dune, so maybe there's something here I don't recognize, but I would have said modern space opera traces very directly back to good old (and very much pre-Dune) space opera...

Re: The Best Science Fiction Books (According to Reddit)

#137

Post by colomon » Fri, Sep 09, 2011, 5:40 PM UTC

Jacquass12321 wrote: post #48

ilamont wrote: post #5

I'm glad to see Gene Wolfe just squeaked onto the list, but IMO the New Sun series ranks up there with Dune. Pohl's "Gateway" and Gibson/Sterling's "The Difference Engine" would have been nice additions, too. Otherwise, it's a nice starting point. There are a few titles I hadn't heard about that I'll be reading, if I can find the time.

Agreed, I spent the entirety of the list going "Yes, this is a good book, but where's Gene Wolfe?" Anyone who loves literature is doing themselves a disservice by not reading it.

Though I think I prefer Long Sun and Short Sun. :)

Re: The Best Science Fiction Books (According to Reddit)

#138

Post by sid6376 » Fri, Sep 09, 2011, 5:43 PM UTC

While I am a voracious reader, I have just started reading sci-fi. (Just finished dune, Starting with stranger in a strange land). Just in case anyone's interested, here's a list of the books mentioned in the article and some famous hackers and entrepreneurs who like the books:

Snow Crash - Sergey Brin

Dune - Michael Arrington

Stranger in a strange land -Michael Arrington ,Linus Torvalds

Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy - Michael Arrington

Ender's Game- Mark Zuckerberg

Anathem - Michael Arrington

Source: my hobby site http://vipreads.com

Links to individual people:

http://vipreads.com/sergey-brin

http://vipreads.com/linus-torvalds

http://vipreads.com/mark-zuckerberg

http://vipreads.com/michael-arrington

Re: The Best Science Fiction Books (According to Reddit)

#139

Post by colomon » Fri, Sep 09, 2011, 5:43 PM UTC

jvdh wrote: post #23

The Foundation series was a great read, I read it when I was young and it influenced a lot of how I viewed the world around me. Having just reread it, I must say that it shows that Asimov did not really want to write the last parts of the series (i.e. Prelude to the Foundation and Forward the Foundation). Forward the Foundation especially is just trying to tie everything together by whatever means necessary. That bei…

Was just thinking that, no matter how George Lucas messes up Star Wars, it can never compare to the damage done to the original Foundation books by Asimov's ham-fisted tying together of everything.

Re: The Best Science Fiction Books (According to Reddit)

#140

Post by Jun8 » Fri, Sep 09, 2011, 5:45 PM UTC

cellularmitosis wrote: post #70

Jun8 wrote: post #43

This is a really interesting list! You've got the predictable ones, e.g. Snow Crash (man, did the conclusion of that one suck !) and juvenile SF, like Startship Troopers (an example of Heinlein's early phase), but really niche ones toward the end (not many would think Atwood as a SF writer). Two gaping holes: Any SF list that doesn't include Stanislaw Lem (e.g. Cyberiad ) is incomplete. Also missing is James Tiptree…

Indeed, I've been enjoying "Her Smoke Rose Up Forever" (an anthology of Tiptree's short stories). I'm short on free time lately, so the short story format makes them feel more accessible.

I loved that anthology and was so intrigued by her Wikipedia page that I bought and read her biography, which is excellent. Would have loved to meet her before she was undone by depression, what a woman!