David was the primary re-designer/developer of the 2nd edition of Starfire.

Original Starfire was designed by Steve Cole, the Star Fleet Battles game creator/designer, as a quicker, simpler, more fleet oriented tactical space wargame.

I think David Weber may have contributed some add-ons to the original game, before becoming the lead on the 2nd edition several years later.

If you know the Starfire rules, you can really see their bones in the "ficto-physics" of various Weber story universes. Besides the STARS AT WAR universe, I mean; STARS AT WAR is the (well-done) novelization of the Starfire background, pure and simple.

drrider

For galactic-level science fiction, it doesn't get better than Asimov's Foundation series. Come to think of it, a Galciv2 Foundation mod would be pretty cool.

Overall, though, my favorite sci-fi writer is Neal Stephenson. Snow Crash, In the Diamond Age, Cryptonomicon... Everything he writes is gold.

I'm surprised no one has yet mentioned Stanislaw Lem. His most popular classic is Solaris, which has been made into two movies, one by Tarkovsky, one a Hollywood fiasco with George Clooney. The book itself is extraordinary. It has deep philosophical themes, cool sci-fi (especially for the 70's, when I believe it was written), and a very eerie, often scary tone.

I haven't read any of his other books yet, but I'll be doing so as soon as I can get my grubby little paws on them.

More props for Arthur C Clark!!

Another one that I had forgotten about. I'm gonna re-read that one. It's a near classic by itself. Thanks!

Yup. After reading it 4 times ... I agree!

Oh man, I forgot that one too. [scribble scribble]

I agree. He had the touch. The references to him in that Master and Commander film [Russel Crowe] was quite touching and probably very close to the truth of how revered he is and how he ... touched people. Also there was this Chinese guy a few centuries earlier who was quite accomplished. Rumored to have discovered some new continents and stuff long before the brits fell in the water on the way to the pub.   

Think Dr. Seuss could make in here? Green eggs and ham was great  

I loved that game. I still have all the bits and pieces hidden in a closet. No one would ever want to play with me unfortunately   .

I like the way Asimov writes. I enjoyed the Robot series. With the Foundation series I just didn't get where he was going. Maybe I read them too young.

I guess some of Dr. Seuss work could qualify as science fiction, such as the one about the who's, or 'Horton Hatches the Egg'. PlayJeff, you probably have to read those to an audience from time to time. But these books might be below the reading level of most of the posters here.   

I'm a big fan of Lois McMaster Bujold's science fiction. I can't be the only one.

Actually, just started reading her fantasy as well, though I'm not usually a big fantasy person. Pretty good, I must say.

I've given up on fantasy in the last few years. There is so much of it, and so much of it is bad. Using the "magic jewel" or "sacred potion" to get out of a plot jam just doesn't seem fair to me.

Hard science fiction grabs my attention and makes me interested. The "Dragonriders of Pern" books are an interesting exception, though. There's just enough hard science in the story to keep it beleivable for me, but they are really fantasy novels. I like them very much, too.

I also should have mentioned "The Stars My Destination" by Albert (I think) Bester. Another really good story.

Great pencil and paper game! I loved playing that!

How old am I? I must truly be a geezer...   

You know it's odd... I've been a big fan of both science fiction and boardgames for most of my life, and I have never heard of Starfire outside of these forums. I'll have to try and dig up a copy.

My problem with most fantasy literature produced these days is that it is so derivative of Tolkien. Nothing wrong with Tolkien, of course -- he's a great writer -- but there's really no reason that I can see why every new fantasy book has to feature dwarves, elves, dragons, orcs, etc. I think some blame can also be placed at the feet of roleplaying games like D&D, as its players are often the same people buying the books. It can be fun, I guess, but it becomes repetitive very quickly. For me, at least.

That said, of late there have been some great deviations from high fantasy... lots of interesting modern/urban fantasy, and newish authors like China Mieville, who, while not my favourite author, at least has some fresh ideas. I also adore George R. R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series. You know, I only read the first book, A Game of Thrones, because I was getting sick of people bugging me to read it. But now I am one of those people. The series really is that good.

I do not have the same problem with fantasy games; I can play computer games or boardgames with standard fantasy tropes and it doesn't bother me at all. It's only really with literature that I find it so boring.

Comics also suffer from the same thing as fantasy, I think. There's really no reason why most comics should be about superheroes. Not all are, of course, but the vast majority are. But there's really nothing about comics, as a medium, should be forced down that path. No more so, say, than that all films should have to be police procedurals. It's just the comics medium stuck in a rut of its own making, I guess. Like with fantasy, there is a demand for it, I suppose.

I don't think science fiction suffers from the same kind of stagnation, though it certainly has in the past. There was a time when every science fiction book had to follow a Campbellian formula, for example. Nowadays, though, science fiction is a very diverse and interesting field of literature that I never really get bored of reading. I can dive into a cyberpunk, space opera, hard sf, soft sf, etc., without ever really feeling like things are getting repetitive (though I kind of dislike some "new wave" sf, I'll admit).

What is sad about science fiction, however, is that it seems most people always refer to the classics Clark, Asimov, Heinlein, etc., rather than discovering all of the fantastic new stuff that is out there. SF publishers make most of their money from their back catalogs, sadly.

Here are my recommendations:

Last and First Men – Olaf Stapledon
The First Men in the Moon – H.G. Wells
The Hyperion Cantos – Dan Simmons
Star Maker – Olaf Stapledon ***A must!***
The Uplift Series – David Brin
Neverness – Zindell
Lord of Light – Roger Zelazny
Foundation – Asimov
Dune – Frank Herbert
Rendezvous with Rama – Arthur.C. Clarke
The Gap Sequence – Stephen Donaldson
A Case of Conscience – James Blish
Against a Dark Background – Iain.M. Banks
The Faded Sun Trilogy – C.J. Cherryh
Grass – Sheri.S. Tepper
Consider Phlebas – Iain.M. Banks
Starship Troopers – Robert Heinlein
Eon – Greg Bear
The Gods Themselves – Asimov
A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess
Earth – David Brin
The Night’s Dawn Trilogy – Peter.F. Hamilton
Childhood’s End – Arthur C Clarke
Feersum Enjinn – Iain.M. Banks
Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
Use of Weapons – Iain.M. Banks
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch – Phillip K Dick
Solaris – Stanislaw Lem
A Fire Upon the Deep – Vernor Vinge
Raft – Stephen Baxter
The Mote in God’s Eye - Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
The Forever War – Joe Haldeman
The Endymion Series – Dan Simmons
Footfall – Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
The Stars My Destination – Alfred Bester
Man Plus – Frederick Pohl
Downbelow Station – C.J.Cherryh
Nemesis – Asimov
The Forge of God – Greg Bear
Cities in Flight – James Blish

Two biggies for me were Perry Rhodan and World War: In the Ballance.

Perry Rhodan is a german space opra, over 2000 books long. Ive got the 110 that were translated into english. Not an espicially chlangening read, but fun.

World War: In the Ballance is the first of a four book series that, in my oppionion, is as good at being a book as GalCiv2 is at being a computer game- kick ass, and unappreaciated.

It's set in the middle of WW2. The Britian, America, Germany, Rusia, China, Japan, fighting. But then the Aliens drop in.

The Aliens werent expecting man to be as quick as he is at inventing things- they were counting on tanks being overkill against men with clubs throwing stones at each other. Instead, they find that they just have the best tanks, planes, missiles.

But humanity has factories, can keep churning them out, making them better, while the Aliens only have what they brought. And thats not counting the addictive propoties that ginger has to them, or the fact that humanity is figuring out Atomic Bombs...

I loved it too. My SFB stuff is squirrled away in my attic. A friend passed away and his family gave me his SFB stuff, so I have two sets. Lucky me. Finding a group to play SFB is tough, and I just don't have the time...

Hydro

The author you are trying to credit is Harry Turtledove. He is the most prominent and prolific current producer of the "alternate history" genre of sf.

drrider

I suppose all sci-fi books have a certain relevance to gc2. It comes with the territory.

The sci-fi books I truly love are as follows

steven donaldson - the gap series

dan simmons - hyperion set.

douglas hill - legionaire of moros, exiles of colsec, huntsman saga (Only if you are a teen! I read them long ago )

frank herbert - Dune saga

peter f hamilton - the nights dawn trilogy. (although i did find the ending to be pretty lame)

Isaac Asimov - Foundation series. The robots. and pretty much everything published by him.

robert heinlein - starship troopers, strnger in a strange land... generally a good writer.

L Ron hubbard - battlefield earth and the first book of the invasion earth set.

theres loads more but these are the ones that come to mind easily

Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's "Mote in God's Eye" is a classic of military SF. I also recommend the collected works of H Beam Piper ('Cosmic Computer', 'Space Viking', 'Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen', 'Uller Uprising', 'Little Fuzzy'). Despite the klunky titles the books are terrific and Piper is an equal to Asimov, Heinlein and Clarke.

Elizabeth Moon's series starring Heris Serrano and Esmay Suiza ('Change of Command' is one) are great.

Poul Anderson's 'Orion Shall Rise', Glen Cook's 'The Dragon Never Sleeps' and 'Passage at Arms' are all terrific.

The absolute best military SF I've ever read is Robert Frezza's trilogy: 'A Small Colonial War', 'Fire in a Faraway Place' and 'Cain's Land'. A look inside a battalion of renegade Finns in the service of the Emperor of Japan on the planet of Suid Africa... breathtaking. Truly fine.

On the "check out the new kids" theme:
John C. Wright - the Golden Age trilogy, and a swell fantasy The Last Guardian of Everness
Walter Jon Williams - Aristoi

Hearty seconds for folks mentioned above: Octavia Butler, Iain M. Banks, David Brin, Frank Herbert, Robert Heinlein, Larry Niven (bad prose, great thinking), Stephen Baxter, Dan Simmons

Missing from the classics roster: Ursula K. Leguin, Andre Norton, Marion Zimmer Bradley, James Tiptree, Jr.(Alice Sheldon) --notice a theme for this gap?

My real recommendation: use your local library and don't be afraid to put a book down partway, halfway, or most of the way through. Only buy books when you know you want to keep the author working or a friend would love the gift.

Mmm, I also noticed that.

Check out Lois McMaster Bujold. She's won three Hugos for science fiction novels (and one for her fantasy). I think she's one of the better writers out there.

Connie Willis is quite good, too. Two Hugos, both for time travel, a genre I normally dislike. Her Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog have more in common with P.G. Wodehouse than Back to the Future.

I'm alittle suprised that no one mentioned David Chalker's Well of Souls series.

It was someone here who told me about it, actually. I've only read the first book (Midnight at the Well of Souls), but its good, although the end is really depressing.

I agree with a few of those mentioned above (I spent alot of time reading Tolkien and Clancy, so my SciFi roster is alittle light), like Asimov, Herbert, and Heinlein.

P.S. I don't know why your all so hard on the Starship Troopers movie, I liked it
It doesn't matter, because my favorite SciFi anything is Stargate

This is really true. I read gobs of science fiction when I was younger, but you could buy a paperback for $1.50. At current prices I tend to be more careful about what I buy. But you can get anything at the library for free.

I just took a look at the "Riverworld" books. I've been hearing about them for years, so I grabbed one at the library and I hated it. Glad I didn't spend $7, but I'm also glad I tried it.



Yep, I agree. John Varley, too.

Who wrote "A Canticle for Liebowitz"? That's a good book - it makes you think.



The problem is us geezers remember the book. The movie, though entertaining and enjoyable, wasn't close at all to the book. The novel had some interesting themes of individual responsibilty, citizenship, and community service. The movie was just a big shoot 'em up.

I also saw an interview with Michael Ironside where he commented, with approbation, on how one of Paul Verhoeven's major goals was to satirize the "strong Fascist themes" in Heinlein's book. Which told me 3 things:
1) Ironside, and possibly Verhoven did not read the book;
2) Virginia never met Verhoven before the rights were sold;
3) I probably don't need to see any more Paul Verhoven films

I actually sorta liked the film initially, mainly because I had been terribly afraid that a typical Hollywood treatment would have cut out the whole early high school, basic training, and coming-of-age portion of the book that was such an important part of it. Because that was left in, albeit simplified, with no expenditure for appropriate location shooting, and because the CGI was great, it took me til reread and second viewing to realize just how much the essential values of the book had been distorted.
And of course the MI suits sucked!

All you younger folks! Read the book! And you might as well buy a copy, because if you like this game, you're a person who will keep your 1st copy until you give it to your as yet unborn kid. (I think we actually have 3 copies.)

drrider

Just finished reading "Paladin of Souls" ... prety good read. I'm a little confussed by the list of books the publisher has on the back of the front cover tho. It lists 19 books, but they don't seem to be in order. The front cover of the book advertises the author as being a multiple award winner for writing the book that is listed after the one I read. Maybe her style is more balanced, and each book can stand alone. Like I said, it was a good read, didn't need any other book to flesh out the background.


Yes, do! In spite of all I've read, Starship Troopers is one I'll never forget ... the book, that is. One of the neat innuendoes in the movie WAS the neo-fascist uniforms and the "Federalist" style of government. As many of you know, after WWII there were many rumors that some high-ranking fascists had managed to make a run for cover to places in South America, and part of the movie is in the future in South America ... subtle connection maybe...entertaining anyway.   

I agree with dystopic mostly.... here my 2 cents




Paul was trying to stop the Jihad a war that would spread to all the stars in the known universe. Also Paul does not sit in the old Emperor's throne but create one on Dune its quite difrent then just taking over the old system he marries the two.




Humans had other means of travel then the spice before they found it. They made it Illegal after the Butlerian Jihad.





Also Paul is an outsider as well, OBL is not.



Yeah it has a lot of parallels cause Herbert really study the Islamic culture.

Anything I didn t quote from dystopic I felt I didn t have anything more to say.

This is a point I thought about bringing up myself. Paul is not a fremen, he's a member of the other side who is dissatisfied. After all, he's a good guy, and youthful, and idealistic. Perhaps he sees the Universe from a fresh perspective, and what he sees doesn't make sense. The connection that he is forced into (by fate or whatever) is turbulent and difficult to manage, yet he does quite well. A respectable role model in any case, if not an actual Hero.

I kinda waffle on the Hero label, because most Heros are supposed to die so someone else can take credit for their moves. Maybe that part of the theme was taken care of in the follow-on books, which I have not read, nor will I.

I d say he's closer to Machiavelli's ideal prince is. He will follow "good" most of the time but he also knows how to do "evil". Paul and his mother had an arguement on how to stop the coming Jihad and asked him to think of all the innocent people HE will kill doing it his way. he said something like: There are no innocents mother you and your order took that away from me.



Eh he is ok, but I prefer Mythos vs. pure fiction cause at least in Myths the person is not just dreamed up. I also prefer to use real people, Alexander, Scipio, Sun Tzu, Himalcar, Hannibal, Richard, Saladin, Wellington, Atatrk, Romel, Patton, to name a few. Though you can say there is mythos with all of them, but hey there is mythos with everyone!