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The Best Science Fiction Books (According to Reddit)

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

#251

Post by Roboprog »

r00fus wrote: post #223
pragmatic wrote: post #38

Neal Stephenson really matures between Snow Crash and Diamond Age. I read snow crash after some of his later stuff and it's almost hard to believe it's the same author. Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon are great books but each has their own style and you would think it was a different author if you didn't know better. That's why I like Stephenson so much. He takes a topic and researches it so much that he brings it to li…

Agreed... I read Cryptonomicon first, then Diamond Age (my favorite from him) then Snow Crash, and I found the third book a lot less mature and dated (I read it in 2001, almost a decade after it was published). Diamond Age painted a very deep and rich tapestry of future vision.

I found Cryptonomicon a painfully long slog. I enjoyed it overall, but only read it because of having read Snow Crash and Zodiac first. I love Stephenson's humor with technical issues. I suppose I should read some of his longer, er, later books.

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

#252

Post by psykotic »

crc wrote: post #248
psykotic wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also his most tautly plotted novel because of the detective noir framework. Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan and the earlier Vlad Taltos books by Steven Brust also used detective noir conventions to great effect. It's a writer's crutch, but so many fantasy and science fiction writers suck at plotting and pacing that I'd prefer they lean on crutches occasionally rather than bore their readers to death. Egan's two…

Egan looks interesting. Which is a good book to start reading Egan?

Depends on what you like. Permutation City and Diaspora are fan favorites. They are heavy on idea porn but not very good yarns. That goes for most of Egan's books. His short stories are probably his most polished works because the form's constraints force him to keep everything tight. But on the flip side it means he doesn't have time to develop his ideas in great depth.

If you're a programmer, Permutation City would be my recommendation. If you're more mathematically inclined, Diaspora is a good choice. Just so you know what kind of book you'd be in for, the first chapter of Diaspora has a proof outline of the Gauss-Bonnet theorem. His short story The Planck Dive gives a good flavor of Diaspora: http://gregegan.customer.netspace.net.au/PLANCK/Complete/Pla...

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

#253

Post by Roboprog »

CoreDumpling wrote: post #64
llambda wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 up quickly on what they are. I feel Vernor Vinge has a good talent at this too. Apropos A Fire Upon The Deep (superb read) exposition is sparse and when required neatly woven into the story so that you almost never realize it's happening when it is.

I was actually surprised that A Deepness in the Sky didn't make it to the list when A Fire Upon the Deep did. Deepness had a lot of themes that satisfy hacker tastes (not just in terms of the technology but also the socio-political ramifications of it). I had first heard of it when DanielBMarkham highly praised it ( http://www.hn-books.com/Books/A-Deepness-In-The-Sky.htm , HN discussion here at http://news.ycombinato…

Loved Deepness in the Sky. It did make me cringe, though, every time some War on Terror policy was being discussed (in real life), I couldn't help thinking "Emergent" / "Emergency" :-(

Vice Podmaster, indeed.

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

#254

Post by cynest »

qjz wrote: post #183
zavulon wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hear, hear. Any "Best of Sci-Fi" list that omits Solaris and includes Ender's Game is worthless.

The demise of any social website also seems to coincide with the first mention of Ender's Game. Could this be the end of HN as we know it?

I don't think that's a good rule at all. Ender's game a is popular children's novel and is likely remembered fondly in any techie/nerd/geek setting. It just shouldn't belong at the top of a "best of scifi" list.

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

#255

Post by kilian »

nazgulnarsil wrote: post #229
silvajoao wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Last Question is perhaps the short story with the most mind-bending finale. Highly recommended. http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html

I prefer the last answer.

I found both to be some of the most rewarding stories I read. With both, upon finishing them, I spent another hour just thinking about it. Highly recommended!

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

#256

Post by 127 »

templaedhel wrote: post #15

I'm sorry not to see Accelerando by Charles Stross (cstross on HN) on the list. One of the best singularity stories I have read, if not the best. For those of you interested, it's available as a free ebook here: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelera...

My problem with Stross is that while he has some absolutely fantastic ideas and world-building, his stories fall short of keeping me interested or entertained. It's like there's so much stuff crammed in that the story part just falls out of the equation.

MINOR SPOILERS for Accelerando

I thought Accelerando was great up to the part where it stopped making any sense (about the time they were fighting some alien invaders parasites that teleported from somewhere using communication channels). Maybe I'm just dumb, but I really couldn't keep up with the plot and it got very nonsensical so I stopped reading. Dealing with singularities, the divide between the physical and the abstract is always very fluid. While Stross dealt OK with the abstract reality, I thought his physical reality didn't make any sense to me. Hilarious extrapolations, and such.

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

#258

Post by YogSothoth »

geuis wrote: post #117

Out of all the scifi I've read over the years, one really stands out to me. Lilith's Brood by Octavia Butler. The reason isn't that I enjoyed it, but rather that by the time I finished it I was inherently disturbed by it. I've often read stories I enjoyed. Sometimes I read some that are boring. But it's very rare to actually finish something that makes you physically uncomfortable most of the way through. The story i…

Definitely second the recommendation of Lilith's Brood, I also found it very moving. I bought it based upon the strength of her (much) earlier short story Bloodchild which I found myself thinking about for weeks after I'd read it.

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

#260

Post by andrewparker »

brown9-2 wrote: post #132
andrewparker wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ? :)

yes because I couldn't finish it so I don't have a comment.
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