#2974388 - 03/11/10 05:10 AM
Re: Sci-Fi Novels
[Re: PanzerMeyer]
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Joined: May 2000
Posts: 9,710
Legend
Legsie is such a
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Legsie is such a
Hotshot
Joined: May 2000
Posts: 9,710
Zutphen, NL / ShangHai, China
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A.C. Clarke has written a lot of great books. His Rama books (especially the first one), although 'slow' (like that's a negative point somehow... sigh) take a while to get into but are really interesting to read.
There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the universe is for it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
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#2974412 - 03/11/10 07:58 AM
Re: Sci-Fi Novels
[Re: Legend]
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Joined: Dec 1999
Posts: 2,704
Billzilla
Senior Member
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Senior Member
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Brisbane, QLD, Australia
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A.C. Clarke has written a lot of great books. His Rama books (especially the first one), although 'slow' (like that's a negative point somehow... sigh) take a while to get into but are really interesting to read. The first Rama novel was the only one written by Arthur Clarke, the other two were co-written (i.e 95% written) by Gentry Lee and only had Arthur Clarke's name attached to them to make them sell more. They're not very good and don't really follow the story or theme of the first novel very well. For those that haven't read much Clarke, have a go at 'The City and the Stars'. It's an old one but a good one. Also good is 'A Fall of Moondust'.
Out of ammo Out of energy Out of ideas Down to harsh language
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#2974452 - 03/11/10 11:07 AM
Re: Sci-Fi Novels
[Re: Billzilla]
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Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 4,010
PV1
sometime mudslinger
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sometime mudslinger
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Ladner, Wet Coast, Canada
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Ah, I was about to post "City and the Stars" before I read your post. Much better than the Rama and Odyssey books I thought at the time (decades ago). It's been a long time since I read any substantial amount of SF, but I remember fondly the works of A.E. van Vogt and Clifford Simak. Anything of theirs. I enjoyed Heinlein and Asimov, but I was 13 at the time, and they mostly didn't hold up to rereading when I encountered a few of them again years later. Not so the van Vogt, which had kept its punch.
And I have reread Stars My Destination about six or seven times. Oh, my, what a work of art that book is. Someone on the jacket blurb of one of the editions called it a "firecracker of a novel"; yes, but I would go further, it's more like a whole pack of firecrackers, an ever-mounting series of crescendos, of explosions of mind expanding ideas. Despite that it was written almost 60 years ago and the world has overtaken much of what was breathtakingly radical in both style and content at the time, and science has closed many doors which seemed legitimately open territory for hard sf; still, it holds up in the sheer poetry of the Bester style, the quirky, elliptical way he unwraps an idea, and contrives to have it detonate in your head. One after another after another.
If you are impressed with it now, imagine the impact it had in 1955. It was as revolutionary as if Hendrix had played Purple Haze in the '30s. ...well, OK, in the late '40s, say.
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#2974461 - 03/11/10 11:40 AM
Re: Sci-Fi Novels
[Re: Zero Niner]
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Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 121,483
PanzerMeyer
Pro-Consul of Florida
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Pro-Consul of Florida
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Miami, FL USA
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I've read numerous sci-fi novels. But the ones that really stand out for me are the ones that make up the original Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov. . I just recently finished reading the Foundation Trilogy for the second time in my life. What a great body of work by Asimov! It still blows my mind that he wrote these in the early 50's since it just seems so far ahead of its time.
Last edited by PanzerMeyer; 03/11/10 07:33 PM.
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
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#2974689 - 03/11/10 07:32 PM
Re: Sci-Fi Novels
[Re: PanzerMeyer]
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Joined: Sep 2004
Posts: 4,564
Eugene
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Oregon
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"The Stars My Destination"!!! Well done indeed - good call. His other great one, a future detective/murder mystery "The Demolished Man" iirc is also excellent.
For Clarke, don't neglect "Childhood's End."
Van Vogt was dynamite. Checkout "Slan" if you have not already, as well as his other classics.
Eugene i9-9600K GeForce 2080ti Creative Z Win10 32 gig RAM Cougar
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#2979590 - 03/20/10 04:41 AM
Re: Sci-Fi Novels
[Re: Gille]
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,749
streakeagle
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Senior Member
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Seffner, FL USA
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I can't believe in a thread this long about Sci-Fi novels, not one post mentions anything about Poul Anderson. While he is not the household name that his contemporaries became (Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov), his work was extensive and of comparable quality. Come to think of it, I don't recall seeing Ray Bradbury in any of the previous posts either.
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#2980045 - 03/21/10 06:10 AM
Re: Sci-Fi Novels
[Re: streakeagle]
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Joined: Dec 1999
Posts: 2,704
Billzilla
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Senior Member
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Brisbane, QLD, Australia
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I can't believe in a thread this long about Sci-Fi novels, not one post mentions anything about Poul Anderson. Tau Zero, one of my faves.
Out of ammo Out of energy Out of ideas Down to harsh language
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Exodus
by RedOneAlpha. 04/18/24 05:46 PM
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