Discussing/recommending Sci/Fi or Horror Books
 

I'm always looking for something new to read, particularly in the Sci/Fi or Horror gendre. I've read Mira Grant's Feed and Deadline (waiting for Blackout! This is an awesome trilogy!); big fan of Neil Gaiman's American Gods; anything by Larry Niven; some of Neal Stephenson's book (although I'm really fond of Cryptonomicon). I recently got A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.(no kindle version). I have been reading some steampunk of late but I have found that there is a lack of "Science" science fiction.

When I go to the library and look for new SciFi I see a plethora of fantasy (which I do like) but when I look for SciFi I want SciFi. So... suggestions? comments?

Someone please talk to me about Terry Pratchett! I have never read anything by Terry and am hoping for good recomendations! (all of them?)

If you haven't already read them, let me suggests William Gibson's Sprawl Trilogy: Neuromancer, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive. They are all excellent pieces of science fiction (Neuromancer is the *other* reason I decided I wanted to write, A Wrinkle in Time being the first). His second trilogy, the Bridge series is also good. They are Virtual Light, Idoru and All Tomorrow's Parties.

I would also suggest Nancy Kress' Beggars series. If you can get past some of libertarian philosophy they are very good reads. They are: Beggars in Spain, Beggars and Choosers and Beggars' Ride.

Also, George Alec Effinger's trilogy When Gravity Fails, A Fire in the Sun and The Exile Kiss are fantastic.

If you are into steampunk and haven't read The Difference Engine.

Cheers
Aj

Octavia Butler.

Wililam Gibson's stuff, particularly the Sprawl Trilogy, has definitely got interest for me. I'll check into the other ones as well. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle?

The Difference Engine is another on my lists as well. Like Angie, I'm interested in Terry Pratchett but don't know where to start and hate starting mid-way through a series.

Anything specific?

Okay, others may disagree. This can get kind of theological. If I were new to Pratchett I would do them in this order (I'm partial to the City Watch books)

Guards! Guards!
Men at Arms
Feet of Clay
Jingo
The Fifth Elephant
Night Watch
Thud!
Snuff

Then I would do the Moist von Lipwig cycle:
Going Postal
Making Money

Then I would do the sort of 'random' books:

Small Gods
Pyramids (the scene when the king is at court is worth the price of admission)
Moving Pictures
The Truth
Monstrous Regiment

After that, any combination of the witches (Wyrd Sisters is the first in the cycle) and the Rincewind series (Colour of Magic is the first in the cycle)

Then the Tiffany Aching series (The Wee Free Men is the first in that cycle)

Pratchett is hands down my favorite author currently working. At least four or five times per book I will stop and pray to all the writing gods that one day I will be able to write *half* that well. I have applauded (literally) when I completed most of the books on that list. He is funny as hell, is deeply, deeply cynical about human beings but at the same time he expresses a very tender love for us in all our foibles. He is poignant and deep while amusing you. My lovely wife told me last night as she is going through Snuff a second time since it came out last Tuesday, that "if there were really Sam Vimes cops out there, I wouldn't have stopped pursuing a career in law enforcement". Sam Vimes really is the distilled essence of the good cop. Then there's the Patrician, Havelock Vetinari. If Vimes is the very essence from which all cops are cut, Vetinari is the very embodiment of Machiavellian brilliance.


Cheers
Aj

Here's my Wrinkle in Time story because it was the first time I thought about being a writer. I'm blind in one of my eyes and have never had good vision in it. At one point, I had to have a sty removed from my good eye and I was most of the way through A Wrinkle in Time. When my mom brought me home after the surgery, I was trying to read the book with my bad eye (I could still focus it enough at that time to be able to make out words) because I just wanted to finish it. I was also beat, pretty much daily, by my mother who could be upset if she called for me and I was not moving *immediately* after I heard my name. So there I am, lying on the couch, barely able to make out the words and with all of that I was so transported away that I did not hear my mother's voice until she was literally, right on top of me with her hand swinging. That night I realized that in books there was *magic* and that writers were magicians of the first rank. Anything that could take me out of my suburban home and make me tune out the one sound in my life that I was hyper-aware of because to not be was to invite immediate and certain pain, was a magic I wanted to learn how to do.

As to Pratchett, the beautiful thing is that each book really stands on its own. It's not as if you *have* to read them in the order I gave to Medusa but you see the evolution of Sam Vimes from drunken commander of the Night Watch to the second most powerful man in the city of Ankh-Morpork over the course of the City Watch books. But you can jump in at any point and you will immediately know what is going on.

Cheers
Aj

Trouble and Her Friends by Melissa Scott

ok.. pretty well anything by Melissa Scott... She brings a distinct feminist perspective into cybor-punk. She's techn enough to keep my brain engaged, and still fluid enough to let me be swept away.

Although she was more Science Fantasy that Science Fiction, I always recomend "The Company" series by Kage Baker

Her dry sense of humor and sly mocking of humanity makes her, for me, a *one setting read*

I had totally forgotten about Trouble and Her Friends. Now I'm all nostalgic for my misspent youth!

Cheers
Aj

I know suggesting Stephen King is pretty cliche, but I finally got through his book 'The Dome' that I got a few years ago as a Christmas present - it was good, and totally fits the 'science' part.

Is the full name "Under the Dome"? I do love a good Stephen King novel (The Stand remains one of my favourites)

Also, as I had discussed with Angie, Robert McCammon's Swan Song is amazing. I may have to re-read that just because.

He did. He did a 10 year break and came back with 5 new books (there's a trilogy amongst a few others)

I don't read a lot of SCI-FI but I do like some. Lately I have read-

Robopocalypse
Daniel H. Wilson

Perdido Street Station
China Miéville

Not so lately I enjoyed Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

I think I read everything Kurt Vonnegut ever wrote but I never could figure out why they called him a science fiction writer anyway. And that was years ago, so maybe they stopped calling him that.

The Passage by Justin Cronin

I do love Horror but maybe Horror Fantasy is my favorite genre. I'm not sure, but for example I liked Clive Barker's horror stories, however, I loved his horror fantasy novels Imajica, Everworld, The Great and Secret Show, Weaveworld…oldies but goodies to me. But I am a sucker for this stuff. I even loved Wicked.

Another book I enjoyed -
Good Omens
Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

YESSSSSSSS

WG's Bigend books are good too: Pattern Recognition, Spook Country, and Zero History

Oh! And Verner Vinge's Rainbow's End!

Sorry about my previous post. Too late to change it. I read the thread title and assumed the rest. I was in a hurry cause I had to leave so I whipped out the post. After coming back to the thread and reading the OP, i see you were really asking for sci fi recommendations and not horror or fantasy.

Neal Stephenson is cyberpunk and China Miéville i think is steampunk but neither probably has as much science fiction as you are looking for.

Forget the rest. Sorry.