Political Crossfire Forums

anything heinlein wrote. the traveler series. neuromancer. hyperion cantos. dune.

if you want a sci-fi anime f**k you could always try NGE. the two ghost in the shell movies are absolutely amazing. akira. gun buster is kind of light but it deals with time dilation in the most realistic manner i've ever seen. planetes is also a really cool space anime.

also battlestar galactica if you haven't seen it. one of the best sci fi series ever. origin: spirits of the past is a pretty great movie about a post-apocalyptic earth.

and if you want a fun take on the human condition, even though it's not sci-fi, you could always try chuck palahniuk.

Existential and human issues.

First one that springs to mind is Philip K. Dick. But he's not for everyone. Maybe Ubik. Maybe Slaughterhouse Five, by Vonnegut.

If you want the most human of scifi you're best to stick with the classics. Heinlein, Asimov, Bradbury, Niven.

Its easy to tell you to read something like Ender's Game, Dune, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. The Hyperion Cantos in particular. These are kinda must reads for anyone who wants into scifi. Ender's Game and Dune, more than any other books growing up, cemented in me a love for the genre.

If you want something a little harder and near future, consider the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. Far and away the best thing that has ever been written about the colonization of space. For near future hard scifi maybe look into Stephen Baxter.

For military scifi, and this is some of the best stuff, read The Forever War, Old Man's War, Starship Troopers, and Armor.
(Old Man's War is recent, but in the decades to come I think its going to be considered a classic. Great fun in that book.)

A fun book (and author, really) that I often recommend and get ignored is A Deepness in the Sky, by Vinge. He also wrote Marooned in Realtime, another solid book. There is also A Fire Upon the Deep, which is...sorta related.

Oh. If you want a little alternate history, which kinda counts towards scifi, seriously give 1632 a try. Imagine a West Virginia coal town and surrounds transported back to 17th century Germany in the middle of the 30 Years War. Also, look into The Guns of the South. Some pissed off south africans don't like how apartheid worked out so they go back in time and arm the Confederate Army with AK-47's.

Honestly, there is just such a tremendous scope in that genre...Ender's Game. Dune. Hyperion.

Oh. Just read Altered Carbon not long ago. That is some fantastic cyberpunk...which is of course its own subgenre. If you like that sort of thing consider Snow Crash or Neuromancer.

Oh, and if you want to get really dense and conceptual, start chipping away at Neal Stephenson. Anathem. Cryptonomicon. Etc.

Ok, I have a reading list now. I didn't read dune but I saw one of the more recent film versions as a kid, I liked it. Also I played the terrible 2000? video game by Westwood Studios (guys who did Command and Conquer).

I just finished this book and I highly recommend it (it's tops of mind). Great read and it deals with some very timely (and near future) technological issues as they relate to humans.

http://www.amazon.com/Nexus-Ramez-Naam/dp/0857662937

Foundation by asimov