Recommend a Sci-Fi Book

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Arachon

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With Christmas coming up, I am looking in to getting my dear father a neat gift. He happens to be a big fan of sci-fi, so I thought I'd get him a sci-fi book. As far as I know, he likes the "old-school" kind of Sci-fi, Asmiov, Clarke, Herbert etc, I know he's read the Foundation series, the Chanur saga and the Dune series (currently reading Dune, very good book). So something in that vein, not Doom as my classmate said.

Just to add to the discussion, feel free to talk about everything concerning science fiction literature as well.
 

Firia

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Sep 17, 2007
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Buy Neal Stephenson greatest cyberpunk work, "Snow Crash." (others would contest that Cryptonomicon was the best. I say, close second. ;) )
 

Cargando

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Apr 8, 2009
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Ah, I heartily recommend War of the Worlds, by HG Wells, it is very good.
 

DannyBoy451

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Jan 21, 2009
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Anything by Kurt Vonnegut or Philip K. Dick.

The Sirens of Titan is one of the best books I've ever read.
 

revjay

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Nov 19, 2007
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I can't just pick one but if it has Heinlein's name on it it is an excellent book. I'll just throw a few out there, Time enough for love, Stranger in a Strange Land, Rocket Ship Galileo, The Cat who walks through walls, Starship Troopers. Pick one its great.
 

Elburzito

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You could get him "Dark Apostle" by Anthony Reynolds.I enjoyed it quite alot and it's writing style is rather good.
 

whycantibelinus

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I'd recommend The Light of Other Days by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter. It's about wormholes and their usage as a consumer product, quite interesting.

Edit: Oh and I'd also recommend Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. It's about the end of the world via destruction from an asteroid, and chronicles peoples attempt at creating mini societies within tight knit groups. It's a nice read about human nature.
 

oliveira8

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Gene Wolfe The Book of the New Sun.(Though...that's 2 books really...) Not really old school but awesome and probably one of the few Sci-Fi books that book snobs call "Real Literature".
 

Acier

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DannyBoy451 said:
Anything by Kurt Vonnegut or Philip K. Dick.
This is a good bet assuming he hasn't read them already.

Not sure if this will fly but my dad is a huge sci-fi fan, and he liked Lovecraft (although not really sci-fi, but you may want to check it out)
 

hittite

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"Travis Shane Taylor is a born and bred southerner and resides just outside Huntsville, Alabama. He has a Doctorate in Optical Science and Engineering, a Master’s degree in Physics, a Master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, all from the University of Alabama in Huntsville; a Master’s degree in Astronomy from the Univ. of Western Sydney, and a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Auburn University. He is a licensed Professional Engineer in the state of Alabama.

Dr. Taylor has worked on various programs for the Department of Defense and NASA for the past sixteen years. He is currently working on several advanced propulsion concepts, very large space telescopes, space based beamed energy systems, future combat technologies and systems, and next generation space launch concepts. He is also involved with multiple MASINT, SIGINT, IMINT, and HUMINT concept studies.

He has published over 25 papers and the appendix on solar sailing in the 2nd edition of Deep Space Probes by Greg Matloff.

His first science fiction novel is, Warp Speed, and his second is The Quantum Connection published by Baen Publishing. He is also working on two different series with best-selling author John Ringo also by Baen Publishing. He has several other works of both fiction and nonfiction ongoing.

Travis is also a Black Belt martial artist, a private pilot, a SCUBA diver, races mountain and road bikes, competed in triathlons, and has been the lead singer and rhythm guitarist of several hard rock bands. He currently lives with his wife Karen, his daughter Kalista Jade, two dogs Stevie and Wesker, and his cat Kuro." -taken from his Bio his homepage www.doctravis.com





Read anything by this guy. he only makes up what is strictly necessary for the story and always bases his science on existing technology. On the other hand, he also puts a good degree of action into his books. For instance, his book One Day on Mars is about as action packed as it is possible to be and still have a story. It even manages to have a decently unique plot despite being about armored space marines fighting an uprising of Martian colonists.
 

Saul B

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Cargando said:
Ah, I heartily recommend War of the Worlds, by HG Wells, it is very good.
Kenshuku said:
2001: A Space Odyssey.

That's all you need. The sequels are ok too.
These two books were on the tip of my tongue as I clicked this thread
 

Marowit

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Jupiter by Ben Bova.


Not a classic, but an absolutely great story. He the universe he writes in (about 100 yrs from now) is really well imagined, and I continue to enjoy his books though I think Jupiter is his best one so far.
 

StarkRavingSane

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I recommend "Solaris" or "Invincible" by Stanislaw Lem.

Philip K Dick's brilliant, best SF writer I've read so far but technically he's not a hard-sf old school writer. His books are generally more demanding, much darker and less tech-savvy than hard-sf.

Zelazny's "Lord of Light" is something completely different. It's SF allright, the action takes place on a remote planet colonized by humans. The technologically advanced ruling caste pictures themselves as Hindu gods, the rest of the population are living in a pre-industrial era. Style-wise the book is written as if it was a religious text or a myth (the whole narration and almost all the dialogues) but it's interesting, witty, and worth a read if you want something unusual.
 

APPCRASH

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burzummaniac said:
You could get him "Dark Apostle" by Anthony Reynolds.I enjoyed it quite alot and it's writing style is rather good.
If you are looking for an introduction into Warhammer40k, I'd stick with Dan Abnett. I think he holds the title of "King of Blacklibrary."
 

Spaghetti

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Sep 2, 2009
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"The Reality Dysfunction" by Peter F. Hamilton. It's part of a very, VERY long trilogy and it is an amazing story, as long as you can keep up with the huge number charachters. I don't think I can say much about it as the plot. It is a truly epic story and I'm gonna start reading again soon.

It's a little bit in the "New School" of sci-fi as it's a relativley new book, but seeing as I'm a fan of the old school myself, it is a book that can be enjoyed by most Sci-Fi fans.
 

GundamSentinel

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Aug 23, 2009
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Alastair Reynolds - 'Revelation Space'-trilogy. Very good hard sci fi, great story and amazing tech.

Dan Simmons - 'Hyperion' (and sequels) Truly epic, just epic.

Oh, 2001 was very good too.

Philip K. Dick writes some amazing stories, though most really have the same gist. Still good to read. 'Human is' was a great collection.
 

hittite

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RossyB said:
"The Reality Dysfunction" by Peter F. Hamilton. It's part of a very, VERY long trilogy and it is an amazing story, as long as you can keep up with the huge number charachters. I don't think I can say much about it as the plot. It is a truly epic story and I'm gonna start reading again soon.

It's a little bit in the "New School" of sci-fi as it's a relativley new book, but seeing as I'm a fan of the old school myself, it is a book that can be enjoyed by most Sci-Fi fans.
I liked the series, it had a good premise, compelling characters and some really neat science. But I was really disappointed by the ending.
So the Army of Darkness is being summoned from the nether regions of Hell (more or less) when *poof* everything is magically set right, and I do mean EVERYTHING. Deus Ex Machina is a lazy way to end any story, but when the "god" is an artifact from an ancient race and had the power to prevent millions of deaths and torment, but didn't because we didn't ask, it gets a little ridiculous. And also, why couldn't the Kiint tell us what the heck was going on? The problem was really very straight-forward and if they had really given a flying shit about us they wouldn't have answered with cryptic riddles that they knew weren't going to be any help at all.
 

Arachon

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Firia said:
Buy Neal Stephenson greatest cyberpunk work, "Snow Crash." (others would contest that Cryptonomicon was the best. I say, close second. ;) )
As a matter of fact, I've both purchased and read Snow Crash, and whilst I liked it (thought Neuromancer was better though), I don't think he would. He prefers the kind of SF set in space, often with a large-scale storytelling method (Space Operas I believe they're called?).

oliveira8 said:
Gene Wolfe The Book of the New Sun.(Though...that's 2 books really...) Not really old school but awesome and probably one of the few Sci-Fi books that book snobs call "Real Literature".
Looked up that one, not too sure about it really, seemed a bit much like your run-of-the-mill fantasy plot, focused a lot on some inner self-journey, rather than a character caught up in grand events in outer space, which (as far as I've noticed) tend to be the subject of novels such as Dune or Foundation. Of course, The Book of the New Sun(or rather Severian of the Guild, the first part) might just suffer from a bad description on the site I was looking at.