61–70 of 179 posts
Anyone got some favs to share? I need to read the new Peter Hamilton book (book 2 due out soon). And I am ashamed to admit I haven't read any Greg Egan yet, need to get on that :)
The 1950s was a particularly good time for sci fi I think.
Anyone got some favs to share? I need to read the new Peter Hamilton book (book 2 due out soon). And I am ashamed to admit I haven't read any Greg Egan yet, need to get on that :)
I love Stanislaw Lem. Solaris is his most famous and it has many of his core themes; I'd also try Fiasco. I'm also a huge fan of R.A. Lafferty, but his stuff his harder to find, mostly out of print. Peter Watts' Blindsight is amazing recent-ish hard SF. (the follow-up, I did not like at all). Anything from the Strugatsky brothers you can get your hands on!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How would you classify The Foundation? Classic sci-fi novel, right? But it has telepaths.. By modern standards, telepathy, empaths, telekinesis.. that's all magic. Fantasy. But in 20th century science fiction it was extremely common.
Note that in the 20th century telepathy was believed to be real.
Anyone got some favs to share? I need to read the new Peter Hamilton book (book 2 due out soon). And I am ashamed to admit I haven't read any Greg Egan yet, need to get on that :)
I love Stanislaw Lem. Solaris is his most famous and it has many of his core themes; I'd also try Fiasco. I'm also a huge fan of R.A. Lafferty, but his stuff his harder to find, mostly out of print. Peter Watts' Blindsight is amazing recent-ish hard SF. (the follow-up, I did not like at all). Anything from the Strugatsky brothers you can get your hands on!
There are now multiple English translations of Solaris available. I know that there’s been a lot of praise for the newer translation, and I read it, but I do not like it. Something about the earlier translation feels more ominous.
On that note—I’ve always found it hard to believe that The Cyberiad was written by the same author! I love the Cyberiad as well but almost for the opposite reasons I love Solaris. The entire universe is charming and funny, whereas Solaris is engrossing but dreadful. I went through a phase in college, reading every Lem book I could find, and eventually discovering that my library’s stacks also included Lem in Polish. Sadly I know no Polish, and was not motivated enough to learn it, so those novels remained off-limits to me.
I read sci-fi but not fantasy, why do people insist on lumping these together?
What's truly infuriating is how awful the tagging on Audible is. "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" is tagged sci-fi.
Just one small example...
I read sci-fi but not fantasy, why do people insist on lumping these together?
How would you classify The Foundation? Classic sci-fi novel, right? But it has telepaths.. By modern standards, telepathy, empaths, telekinesis.. that's all magic. Fantasy. But in 20th century science fiction it was extremely common.
On a more serious note, yeah scifi and fantasy can usually be distinguished, I get why it so often gets lumped in together as speculative fiction, even though it annoys me when I'm looking for one and have to sift through the other.
I'd like to recommend one as well: The City & the City, by China Miéville. A delightful, unique experience! Fresh and original, “fantasy science fiction”. Not a big fan of detective stories and noir, but this is something else.
Memoires of an imaginary friend
Dogs of war (Adrian Tchaikovsky one)
The devil's detective
Red rising
The painted man
Anyone got some favs to share? I need to read the new Peter Hamilton book (book 2 due out soon). And I am ashamed to admit I haven't read any Greg Egan yet, need to get on that :)
- All 18 Expeditionary Force books by Craig Alanson
- The first 5 Starship's Mage books by Glynn Stewart. UnArcana Stars (book 6) went in a direction that made the government look extremely incompetent.
- Jacques McKeown series by Yahtzee Croshaw
- Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells
- Bobiverse series by Dennis E. Taylor
I'd like to recommend one as well: The City & the City, by China Miéville. A delightful, unique experience! Fresh and original, “fantasy science fiction”. Not a big fan of detective stories and noir, but this is something else.