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My favorite cult sci-fi and fantasy books you may not have heard of before

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Re: My favorite cult sci-fi and fantasy books you may not have heard of before

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They really aren't all that different from each other. One is imaginary things that might one day be possible, and the other is imaginary things that won't ever be possible. And even then, that can swap between the genres. Scifi often contains FTL tech, which from what we know is almost certainly impossible so it's actually more like fantastical magic. Meanwhile, fantasy can have hard rules for its magic, in which ca…

I never find it helpful when people say they aren't that different from each other. Sure there may be some similarities if you want to take an analytical view of the genres, but there's an awful lot of people who like one but not the other.

The problem is once you look at the definitions it's actually quite hard to exactly define what's Fantasy vs Sci-fi. It's more a venn diagram, than strictly separate genres and everyone has their own definition of which is which. So when someone likes one but not the other, it's hard to discuss books because what one person considers sci-fi, another may consider fantasy pretending to be sci-fi, thus the complaints of the original commenter.

Re: My favorite cult sci-fi and fantasy books you may not have heard of before

#102

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.

Nearly. People born in the 20th century can do it, everyone born post-millenium cannot.

Re: My favorite cult sci-fi and fantasy books you may not have heard of before

#103
post #89

I read sci-fi but not fantasy, why do people insist on lumping these together?

Practically speaking, they're lumped together for a few reasons: 1. Many people who like one genre also like the other. 2. Many authors write in both genres. 3. There's a lot of similarity in the genres, and lots of things that are hard to categorize. More true lately btw. Just as an aside though, I personally was an avid almost-only-SF reader for the first 30-ish years of my life, but lately have been reading a lot…

> I feel like the lines are even blurrier between them today

*urban fantasy has entered the chat*

Re: My favorite cult sci-fi and fantasy books you may not have heard of before

#104

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.

I would reach for John Carter of Mars (Burroughs, 1912) to make the same point.

Especially given how some of the "science fiction" elements of it read 100+ years later.

Re: My favorite cult sci-fi and fantasy books you may not have heard of before

#105
I really enjoy lists like this. These days, recommendation systems tend to push the most popular and addictive content, which makes it harder to stumble upon hidden gems. But I’ve found that older or more obscure novels often carry a different kind of imagination. They’re not following formulas and they’re not tied to movies or franchises. It feels like reading someone’s raw creative mind before it got polished or filtered. I’m also curious if anyone has a book that barely anyone talks about, but left a lasting impact on you. I’d love to add it to my list.

Re: My favorite cult sci-fi and fantasy books you may not have heard of before

#106

I read sci-fi but not fantasy, why do people insist on lumping these together?

I imagine one of the reasons is that the master himself, Arthur C Clarke, said it himself with his 3 laws. The third of which is: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Re: My favorite cult sci-fi and fantasy books you may not have heard of before

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm with you. My favorite sci-fi is something like Project Hail Mary, which is radically different from fantasy.

I do not understand the praise that PHM or Andy Weir get in general. I hate the way he writes. Characters are all interchangeable and quirky because he says so. The science is tacked on like a chemistry teacher putting their kids to bed. SciFi: Read Larry Niven and James Blish if you like feats of engineering, read Ann Leckie and Nancy Kress if you like characters defined by their actions. Don’t tell me to be excited…

He's the Dan Brown of sci-fi.

Re: My favorite cult sci-fi and fantasy books you may not have heard of before

#110
post #2

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 :)

Bit of shameless self-promotion but I have just finished re-editing my 370,000 word sci-fi trilogy novel and have just released the eBook for free (https://rodyne.com/?p=1252) - the length shouldn't be a problem if you like Peter Hamilton :-)
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