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

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

#171

Post by Pieces » Fri, Sep 09, 2011, 6:38 PM UTC

T-hawk wrote: post #62

How about more modern science fiction? I loved the Golden Age series by John C. Wright, published around 2004. It's refreshing to read sci-fi where computers and connectivity are ubiquitous, rather than the old masters who didn't foresee the internet. ( Stranger has flying taxicabs using magnetic tape for storage, a jarring juxtaposition to the modern reader.) Golden Age raises some real philosophical questions, as g…

Both Hamilton's _Pandora's Star_ and Vinge's _A Fire Upon the Deep_ are "Modern" sci-fi (though, definitely not hard sci-fi) where computing and networking are important to the story. The plot being A Fire Upon the Deep involves travelling to a planet lacking modern technology and the changes that brings.

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

#172

Post by BenOfTomorrow » Fri, Sep 09, 2011, 6:51 PM UTC

subwindow wrote: post #71

Obviously with any list there's going to be quite a lot of nits to pick... At any rate, here are mine. Sad to see Stanislaw Lem completely left out in favor of some obviously inferior books (Anathem!?). Also a curious choice for the obligatory Atwood novel. Surprised that Gravity's Rainbow was not on there- I'd put it near the top (maybe it wasn't "Sci-Fi" enough?) Good to see Canticle for Leibowitz as well as a fair…

Gravity's Rainbow: recognized, but not recalled, as science fiction. I don't necessarily object to the classification, but it might not come to mind if I were making a list.

Also, Pynchon's prose is very rich - I expect popular lists to be dominated by lighter fare.

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

#173

Post by onedognight » Fri, Sep 09, 2011, 6:53 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.

Bujold has a noteworthy digital philosophy as well. The entire Vorkosigan series is available online http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/24-CryoburnCD/CryoburnCD/

... all of it beautifully unencrypted and unencumbered. What’s the catch? This disk and its contents may be copied and shared, but NOT sold. All commercial rights are reserved. That’s it.

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

#174

Post by radley » Fri, Sep 09, 2011, 6:54 PM UTC

ableal wrote: post #105

T-hawk wrote: post #62

How about more modern science fiction? I loved the Golden Age series by John C. Wright, published around 2004. It's refreshing to read sci-fi where computers and connectivity are ubiquitous, rather than the old masters who didn't foresee the internet. ( Stranger has flying taxicabs using magnetic tape for storage, a jarring juxtaposition to the modern reader.) Golden Age raises some real philosophical questions, as g…

Thank you. I believe Golden Age is the series I was trying to remember in a conversation a few weeks ago as an example of extreme use of augmented reality. I'll toss in my recent favorite space opera: the Polity series by Neal Asher. Similar to Banks in that it has governing AIs, but less omniscient; good adventure stories, with a dash of horror in original hostile species, sentient and otherwise.

I'll 2nd Asher. Just read the prologue of Gridlinked. On par with Game of Thrones.

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

#175

Post by richieb » Fri, Sep 09, 2011, 6:56 PM UTC

This must be the runners up list. The best list is mostly Stanislaw Lem with a sprinkling of Philip K. Dick. :)

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

#176

Post by ovi256 » Fri, Sep 09, 2011, 7:00 PM UTC

wiredfool wrote: post #109

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…

Hyperion is Chaucer, updated. Took me embarassingly long to twig onto that. Personally, I found the first and fourth Hyperion books to be my favorites, and the middle two less so, and nearly a separate story altogether.

And Chaucer is the Decameron, rewritten in English with English names and toponyms. And the Decameron is the 1001 Nights, rewritten in renaissance Italian. And let's not forget the 16th century "Cent Nouvelles nouvelles", which is obviously related by format and plot.

TL;DR: These are timeless tales, retold to fit the author's time.

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

#177

Post by Radim » Fri, Sep 09, 2011, 7:13 PM UTC

j_col wrote: post #30

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…

God Emperor is difficult to get into, but worth sticking with. Actually love the opening sequence of that book more than any other, which describes some thieves being chased through a forest by a pack of guard wolves, as Herbert moves expertly from the thoughts of one thief to another as they are gradually caught by the wolves, starting from the slowest runner at the back. Fantastic writing.

Indeed, God Emperor is by far the best of the Dune series. I've re-read it many times and it never fails to deliver.

Goes to show different people like different things? Apparently, I'm more into the psychology and exploration of large-scale social patterns. People who like the other Dune books are presumably more into "action" sci-fi. Nothing wrong with that.

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

#178

Post by zachgalant » Fri, Sep 09, 2011, 7:15 PM UTC

I'm working on a website called Raunk that crowdsources rankings of anything (including Science Fiction books) and allows you to view best of lists from different perspectives.

It's also a great way to keep track of your favorites and compare them with your friends and the entire internet.

Check it out at http://raunk.com

Log in to make your best Science Fiction Books list here: http://raunk.com/create/82,268

Or view the list here: http://raunk.com/list/82,268

We just launched and are still in Beta, so we'd love to hear any feedback on the site.

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

#179

Post by tadfisher » Fri, Sep 09, 2011, 7:23 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #32

I would add Permutation City. It's about: what's it like to be a digital person in a virtual world? What are the psychological effects of knowing that you're virtual; how do you experience time passing; what are the social implications of changing your appearance at whim, etc. And, how do different interpretations of data compete to become "real"? For example, if you look at it one way it's a city, another way it's a…

For a more complete extrapolation of this concept, check out Diaspora by Greg Egan.

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

#180

Post by eavc » Fri, Sep 09, 2011, 7:26 PM UTC

dtbx wrote: post #169

VanL wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do I understand you correctly that you cannot even stand the idea of someone talking positively about God? I am trying to think of another context in which your sentence (In , the sole purpose of is to mocked, criticized, or denied.) would make any kind of sense whatsoever. Is there a particular, articulable reason that this is anything more than running away from concepts that challenge your preexisting mindset? For…

Just try to imagine something so awful, so harmful to , and your horrible generalisation would make sense :) In particular, what happens when the genre is sci fi and the noun is god? Clearly, that noun is not to be adored. Religion is for that. Should sci fi say something nice about that noun? That He really exists, after all? Science is for that, and science until now... I really think that sci fi should take a clea…

God has yet to be disproved by science; it's unlikely that will ever happen, actually, no matter the fact of God's existence.

There's also no general framework from science that makes God incompatible with known laws.

So God, in the context of a sci fi book, belongs to the class of things that have yet to be discovered but which are still consistent as possible discoveries.

Even aside from that, you can have concessions made to the willing suspension of disbelief. There are limited concessions made in all but the strictest of science fiction for the sake of making a compelling story.

I can understand if you have such a strong distaste for those kinds of ideas that it ruins a story for you, but that's a matter of taste, not any necessary quality of the genre at large.