A number of very good books and series listed above but I don't see mine.

Tactics of Mistake by Gordon R. Dickson. In my opinion the best storyline about breakaway colonies from Old Earth. The book covers the rise of The Dorsai, an evolutionary path of earth colonists whose ground fighting skills see them rise as mercenaries to the other colonies. A number of books in the Dorsai series, all of which are quite good. My custom race in DL was patterned off the Dorsai, with many soldiering bonuses and always a mad rush to Qui Tran training.

Like some others above I also really enjoyed the Foundation series by Asimov. For a humourous look at interplanetary politics, I recommend any of the Retief books by Keith Laumer. Yes my favoured authors are dated, as am I. Still looking for authors that can match the pioneers of science fiction writing.

I highly recommend Olaf Stapledon's Last and First Men.

My God! How can anyone even mention these two books in the same breath? That's like saying your great dining experiences were Top of the Mark in San Francisco, and the PBnJ that your brother dropped on the school playground and didn't want any more.



drrider

The High Crusade, by Poul Anderson.

Credit for confirmation to my wife the librarian, and SF database supreme.

There is another more recent, involving 14th century English expeditionary force kidnapped out of a storm at sea, as slave mercs, then going on to overpower the BEMs. It is very good, but I'd be taking my life in my hands to disturb her nap again.

drrider

sounds equally like a testament to the violent nature of the human species, but...



i've got a search going at my library for Tau Zero by the same author (the library's copy is missing).

I'm pretty sure you mean The Forge of God and Anvil of Stars by Greg Bear. Great books by a great author.

Schizmatrix Plusby Bruce Sterling

Dune. Use Of Weapons. Revelation Space. Fairyland (yes it's SF!)

And of course: Shadow Of The Torturer.

Oh thanks so much Drrider and to your wife as well. I was wondering how in the world i was going to look for it to see if i could get a copy of it. Now its easy....thank you thank you thank you!

thought a few of you guys would be interested to know, if you don't already, that Poul Anderson's daughter, Astrid, happens to be married to Greg Bear.

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

I quite liked his "Trouble with Lichen" too, but really loved (I'd forgotten about it) his short book, "Chocky" which I highly recommend. It is a breezy read, and very good.

I loved Wolfe's books too, but Sci-Fi it ain't.

The "Lensmen" series of novels by EE Smith, sometimes known as Doc Smith. Its acknowledged as one of the fore-fathers of modern science fiction, and still as readable now as when it was first published. Take care to read them in Series order though else you end up with unintentional plot spoilers concerning preceeding novels in the series.

"The Void Captain's Tale" by Norman Spinrad.

LintMan, you are amazing. I've been casually checking the web for the title of that book for about a decade without luck. Once I googled Anvil of Stars, I knew immediately from the cover art that this was the book.

Thank you!

1) Songs of a Distant Earth by Arthur C Clarke.
2) A Short History of the Future by W. Warren Wager.
3) Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds.

another good one -- "revenge of the giant lobsters!"

To each his own. I thought they were both great stories.

Surprised not one mention of "Little Fuzzy" by H.Beam Piper.

What is that series that had a small Midwestern town transported back in time to Midevil Europe? That was a good onr. And also there was a series of bookes about an American Civil War regiment (24th Maine I think) that was on a ship head for the South when they went through some vortex and ened up on another planet. They wound up having to fight several tribes of Giants who went around eating humans. It was a very good Sci-fi war story.

Edit: was helping with the names of one of the books, but see I was beaten to it.

Iain M Banks is my favourite sci-fi author. I'd pick one of those (not sure which one though!)

drrider,

i finished Out of the Silent Planet today. i agree that it was no where near the quality of Narnia and some of his essays and especially poetry. but i still enjoyed parts of it, especially since Random is a philologist (as am i). while i'm still a bit weary of the next book because of what you said, i want to get to the third. an obscure song by a band i've followed for years now is based on the book to some degree (they based other songs on other work by Lewis, which was the initial reason i looked into Lewis's other works). so i really want to get through that book, if nothing else to get a sense of how the lyrics fit into the larger context of the story.

...if i finished the entire Dune chornicles, i can finish this.

Wife, the librarian, who consumes critically reviewed (and quite a bit of 'other') SF like the Doctor ate jelly babies, warned me off the Dune follow ons, then later said that the last one was apparently worth it. I did get about 1/2 way through the 2nd one (Children?) before the stamina gave out. I skimmed a couple of the others.

I used to warn young readers, "Frank Herbert got flicked on the head one day by God; he saw the glowing words, wrote them down, and produced one of the 1/2 dozen greatest SF books of all time. Unfortunately, he tried to write the next 4 or 5 on his own." Actually I believe I read that Herbert did get an inspiration while working on another book that was going slowly, and knocked out Dune's 1st editor's draft in about 3 months.

drrider

drrider: Too bad for you. I agree that the second book was the weakest of Dune series and it was a little bit sad too. But the other books were perfect. Every single book of that series was aimed on something else. So if you expect it will be like The Dune, you will be disappointed. But I am very happy to have the whole series at home (including books of Herbert's son). They are definitely worthy of reading.

Ooooh I've so many favourites

Here's a few:
* The Player of Games - Iain Bank
* When HARLIE Was One: Release 2.0 - David Gerrold
* Childhood's End - Arthur C Clarle
* Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
* Evolution - Stephen Baxter
* Memory - Lois McMaster Bujold
* When Gravity Fails - George Alex Effinger
* Cyteen - CJ Cherryh
* The Dispossed - Ursula Le Guin
* The Dancers at the End of Time - Michael Moorcock