Recommended a sci-fi book for a non sci-fi reader
Discussion
Currently reading Sea of Rust, by C Robert Cargill. It's very good and probably a good read for someone not in to SciFi as it's not particularly far fetched science and is about the people dealing with both the present and their pasts. It's following a survivor of the war between humans and machines during the follow-on war 30 or so years later, while simultaneously explaining how the first war came about, so it's kind of two stories in one. The fact that the characters are all robots is a slight twist on the usual post apocalyptic novels though.
Well you probably got more than you bargained for there Jim! What did you plump for in the end?
I'm a life long Sci-fi reader but would struggle to make recommendations for somebody new to the genre, it's so subjective.
If you want a gentle intro probably the Foundation series whuch is almost quaint now, or for full on galaxy sweeping fun I'd say Consider Phleabus by Banks.
The fact that both of these have been quoted several times already here is probably a fair concesus.
Its a dangerous box to open my friend!
I'm a life long Sci-fi reader but would struggle to make recommendations for somebody new to the genre, it's so subjective.
If you want a gentle intro probably the Foundation series whuch is almost quaint now, or for full on galaxy sweeping fun I'd say Consider Phleabus by Banks.
The fact that both of these have been quoted several times already here is probably a fair concesus.
Its a dangerous box to open my friend!
Well i'm 2/3rds of the way through Children of Time and it is turning into a bit of a patronising mess from my point of view.
I won't spoil it here but suffice it to say the subtext and the allegorical inferences are not subtle or clever imho. I'll probably stick with it but it has to go some way from here on in to allay my fears of being slightly conned.
all in my opinion of course.
I won't spoil it here but suffice it to say the subtext and the allegorical inferences are not subtle or clever imho. I'll probably stick with it but it has to go some way from here on in to allay my fears of being slightly conned.
all in my opinion of course.
Just rewatched some of my fave youtube vids recently, and I thought this might be interesting for some here. Maybe. 
both vids about 10 mins
https://youtu.be/K8kwZ_7M3o0
https://youtu.be/aTUbAK1DsOc
both vids about 10 mins
Is Game of Thrones Sci-Fi?
https://youtu.be/K8kwZ_7M3o0
Is Game of Thrones Post-Apocalyptic?
https://youtu.be/aTUbAK1DsOc
GRR Martin said:
"And for that matter, my favorite science fiction film of all time is not 2001: A Space Odyssey or Alien, or Star Wars, or Bladerunner, or (ugh) The Matrix, but rather Forbidden Planet, better known to us cognoscenti as The Tempest on Altair-4, and starring Leslie Nielsen, Anne Francis, Walter Pidgeon, and Bat Durston.
But how could this be? How could critics and theatre-goers and Shakespeareans possibly applaud these Bat Durston productions, ripp’d untimely as they are from their natural and proper settings?
The answer is simple. Motor cars or horses, tricorns or togas, ray-guns or six-shooters, none of it matters, so long as the people remain. Sometimes we get so busy drawing boundaries and making labels that we lose track of that truth.
Casablanca put it most succinctly. ‘It’s still the same old story, a fight for love and glory, a case of do or die.’
William Faulkner said much the same thing while accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature, when he spoke of ‘the old verities and truths of the heart, the universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed - love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice.’ The ‘human heart in conflict with itself,’ Faulkner said, ‘alone can make good writing, because only that is worth writing about.’
We can make up all the definitions of science fiction and fantasy and horror that we want. We can draw our boundaries and make our labels, but in the end it’s still the same old story, the one about the human heart in conflict with itself.
The rest, my friends, is furniture.
The House of Fantasy is built of stone and wood and furnished in High Medieval. Its people travel by horse and galley, fight with sword and spell and battleaxe, communicate by palantir or raven, and break bread with elves and dragons.
The House of Science Fiction is built of duralloy and plastic and furnished in Faux Future. Its people travel by starship and aircar, fight with nukes and tailored germs, communicate by ansible and laser, and break protein bars with aliens.
The House of Horror is built of bone and cobwebs and furnished in Ghastly Gothick. Its people travel only by night, fight with anything that will kill messily, communicate in screams and shrieks and gibbers, and sip blood with vampires and werewolves.
The Furniture Rule, I call it.
Forget the definitions. Furniture Rules.
Ask Phyllis Eisenstein, who has written a series of fine stories about a minstrel named Alaric, traveling through a medieval realm she never names.. . but if you corner her at a con she may whisper the name of this far kingdom. ‘Germany.’ The only fantastic element in the Alaric stories is teleportation, a psi ability generally classed as a trope of SF. Ah, but Alaric carries a lute, and sleeps in castles, and around him are lords with swords, so ninety-nine readers out of every hundred, and most publishers as well, see the scries as fantasy. The Furniture Rules.
Ask Walter Jon Williams. In Metropolitan and City on Fire he gives us a secondary world as fully imagined as Tolkien’s Middle Earth, a world powered entirely by magic, which Walter calls ‘plasm.’ But because the world is a single huge decaying city, rife with corrupt politics and racial tensions, and the plasm is piped and metered by the plasm authority, and the sorcerers live in high rises instead of castles, critics and reviewers and readers alike keep calling the books science fiction. The Furniture Rules.
Peter Nicholls writes, ‘... SF and fantasy, if genres at all, are impure genres . . . their fruit may be SF, but the roots are fantasy, and the flowers and leaves perhaps something else again.’ If anything, Nicholls does not go far enough, for westerns and mysteries and romances and historicals and all the rest are impure as well. What we really have, when we get right down to the nitty gritty, are stories. Just stories.
Fantasy? Science fiction? Horror?
I say it’s a story, and I say the hell with it.
But how could this be? How could critics and theatre-goers and Shakespeareans possibly applaud these Bat Durston productions, ripp’d untimely as they are from their natural and proper settings?
The answer is simple. Motor cars or horses, tricorns or togas, ray-guns or six-shooters, none of it matters, so long as the people remain. Sometimes we get so busy drawing boundaries and making labels that we lose track of that truth.
Casablanca put it most succinctly. ‘It’s still the same old story, a fight for love and glory, a case of do or die.’
William Faulkner said much the same thing while accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature, when he spoke of ‘the old verities and truths of the heart, the universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed - love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice.’ The ‘human heart in conflict with itself,’ Faulkner said, ‘alone can make good writing, because only that is worth writing about.’
We can make up all the definitions of science fiction and fantasy and horror that we want. We can draw our boundaries and make our labels, but in the end it’s still the same old story, the one about the human heart in conflict with itself.
The rest, my friends, is furniture.
The House of Fantasy is built of stone and wood and furnished in High Medieval. Its people travel by horse and galley, fight with sword and spell and battleaxe, communicate by palantir or raven, and break bread with elves and dragons.
The House of Science Fiction is built of duralloy and plastic and furnished in Faux Future. Its people travel by starship and aircar, fight with nukes and tailored germs, communicate by ansible and laser, and break protein bars with aliens.
The House of Horror is built of bone and cobwebs and furnished in Ghastly Gothick. Its people travel only by night, fight with anything that will kill messily, communicate in screams and shrieks and gibbers, and sip blood with vampires and werewolves.
The Furniture Rule, I call it.
Forget the definitions. Furniture Rules.
Ask Phyllis Eisenstein, who has written a series of fine stories about a minstrel named Alaric, traveling through a medieval realm she never names.. . but if you corner her at a con she may whisper the name of this far kingdom. ‘Germany.’ The only fantastic element in the Alaric stories is teleportation, a psi ability generally classed as a trope of SF. Ah, but Alaric carries a lute, and sleeps in castles, and around him are lords with swords, so ninety-nine readers out of every hundred, and most publishers as well, see the scries as fantasy. The Furniture Rules.
Ask Walter Jon Williams. In Metropolitan and City on Fire he gives us a secondary world as fully imagined as Tolkien’s Middle Earth, a world powered entirely by magic, which Walter calls ‘plasm.’ But because the world is a single huge decaying city, rife with corrupt politics and racial tensions, and the plasm is piped and metered by the plasm authority, and the sorcerers live in high rises instead of castles, critics and reviewers and readers alike keep calling the books science fiction. The Furniture Rules.
Peter Nicholls writes, ‘... SF and fantasy, if genres at all, are impure genres . . . their fruit may be SF, but the roots are fantasy, and the flowers and leaves perhaps something else again.’ If anything, Nicholls does not go far enough, for westerns and mysteries and romances and historicals and all the rest are impure as well. What we really have, when we get right down to the nitty gritty, are stories. Just stories.
Fantasy? Science fiction? Horror?
I say it’s a story, and I say the hell with it.
Thanks Halb, interesting read.
Bo
cks, but an interesting opinion. Or maybe I'm just shallow. I can watch or read pretty much any old rubbish so long as it is 'futuristic' with space ships/interplanetary travel, hi-tech everything and preferably a Utopian outlook.
If it's got elves, wizards and fairies I'm (probably) out. There are a few exceptions.
Bo
cks, but an interesting opinion. Or maybe I'm just shallow. I can watch or read pretty much any old rubbish so long as it is 'futuristic' with space ships/interplanetary travel, hi-tech everything and preferably a Utopian outlook.If it's got elves, wizards and fairies I'm (probably) out. There are a few exceptions.
LordGrover said:
Thanks Halb, interesting read.
Bocks, but an interesting opinion. Or maybe I'm just shallow. I can watch or read pretty much any old rubbish so long as it is 'futuristic' with space ships/interplanetary travel, hi-tech everything and preferably a Utopian outlook.
If it's got elves, wizards and fairies I'm (probably) out. There are a few exceptions.
This is one of GRR's old SF stories, I thought it may interest youBo
cks, but an interesting opinion. Or maybe I'm just shallow. I can watch or read pretty much any old rubbish so long as it is 'futuristic' with space ships/interplanetary travel, hi-tech everything and preferably a Utopian outlook.If it's got elves, wizards and fairies I'm (probably) out. There are a few exceptions.
Thousand Worlds Book Club: With Morning Comes Mistfall by George R.R. Martin
https://youtu.be/jZ1ejge9Ks410 mins
cardigankid said:
Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham. Wyndham also wrote some excellent short stories.
Some of Wyndham's other main books are excellent primers. Kraken Wakes is the triffids underwater. Crysalids is post a apocalyptic story about envy. The Trouble with Lichen is slower paced, and without excitement. They are easy to read and have pleasant people in them.Midwich Cuckoos gives an example of when it is perfectly nice to blow up children. Not so pleasant that one.
captain_cynic said:
Halb said:
Is there a difference between fantasy and sci-fi?
Yes,Fantasy deals with fantasy themes (elves, magic, swords and archers, typically themes associated with the past). Science fiction deals with more futuristic themes (space travel, other planets, lasers).
They're quite different genres, even amongst sci-fi there are distinct Genres. I.E. hard sci-fi, space opera, military sci-fi.
Just because some authors write both sci-fi and fantasy doesn't mean the two genres are the same. Iain M Banks (Culture novels) published his Sci-Fi novels as Iain M Banks but his fantasy novels were published as Iain Banks.
RizzoTheRat said:
Currently reading Sea of Rust, by C Robert Cargill. It's very good and probably a good read for someone not in to SciFi as it's not particularly far fetched science and is about the people dealing with both the present and their pasts. It's following a survivor of the war between humans and machines during the follow-on war 30 or so years later, while simultaneously explaining how the first war came about, so it's kind of two stories in one. The fact that the characters are all robots is a slight twist on the usual post apocalyptic novels though.
+1, Great book
Don't know if anyones mentioned Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty yet? A murder mystery in space story with an interesting take on cloning.
Edited by Zooks on Monday 14th January 10:19
I thoroughly enjoyed The Martian.... one of the few books I found I just couldnt put down. I'd seen the film and enjoyed it, but thought the book was so much more. I'm reading another book by the author - Atremis - which is a bit of a grind.... I think perhaps he got lucky with The Martian.
Hi Sci-Fi reading PH people,
I have plucked up the courage to post this after a few days of deliberating. I’ve accepted the last of my editors corrections and my novel is complete.
Apeiron is the first book series of that I have in the planning / draft stages, and I am happy to share a pdf with anyone interested. I specifically posted on this thread as I don’t think you need to be a complete hard-Sci-Fi nut to enjoy it.
I’ve not written the blurb yet, so I am free-styling the next bit. It’s set on contemporary Earth and is a technology based thriller. The plot features a young man John Henry, who has a genetic abnormality which gives him access to mendicant abilities. He is recruited into a civilian research programme, which turns out to be supporting a US (where else?) military conspiracy to develop alien tech into a mind-control weapon. A terrorist organisation tries to prevent the military succeeding by attempting to destroy the research with a bomb, and John Henry is asked to infiltrate the insurgents. Things progress well until he discovers the group members share his genetic abnormality and he begins to question his allegiance.
That doesn't really do it justice, but I don’t want to give too much away because I think it would spoil it. I would really appreciate feedback if you have any. I fully expect a publisher to ask for another edit if they accept it, so I likely have time to make a few changes.
Happy to answer questions on the forum, or please PM if that works for you.
JC
I have plucked up the courage to post this after a few days of deliberating. I’ve accepted the last of my editors corrections and my novel is complete.
Apeiron is the first book series of that I have in the planning / draft stages, and I am happy to share a pdf with anyone interested. I specifically posted on this thread as I don’t think you need to be a complete hard-Sci-Fi nut to enjoy it. I’ve not written the blurb yet, so I am free-styling the next bit. It’s set on contemporary Earth and is a technology based thriller. The plot features a young man John Henry, who has a genetic abnormality which gives him access to mendicant abilities. He is recruited into a civilian research programme, which turns out to be supporting a US (where else?) military conspiracy to develop alien tech into a mind-control weapon. A terrorist organisation tries to prevent the military succeeding by attempting to destroy the research with a bomb, and John Henry is asked to infiltrate the insurgents. Things progress well until he discovers the group members share his genetic abnormality and he begins to question his allegiance.
That doesn't really do it justice, but I don’t want to give too much away because I think it would spoil it. I would really appreciate feedback if you have any. I fully expect a publisher to ask for another edit if they accept it, so I likely have time to make a few changes.
Happy to answer questions on the forum, or please PM if that works for you.
JC
JohnCarlisleApeiron said:
Hi Sci-Fi reading PH people,
I have plucked up the courage to post this after a few days of deliberating. I’ve accepted the last of my editors corrections and my novel is complete. Apeiron is the first book series of that I have in the planning / draft stages, and I am happy to share a pdf with anyone interested. I specifically posted on this thread as I don’t think you need to be a complete hard-Sci-Fi nut to enjoy it.
I’ve not written the blurb yet, so I am free-styling the next bit. It’s set on contemporary Earth and is a technology based thriller. The plot features a young man John Henry, who has a genetic abnormality which gives him access to mendicant abilities. He is recruited into a civilian research programme, which turns out to be supporting a US (where else?) military conspiracy to develop alien tech into a mind-control weapon. A terrorist organisation tries to prevent the military succeeding by attempting to destroy the research with a bomb, and John Henry is asked to infiltrate the insurgents. Things progress well until he discovers the group members share his genetic abnormality and he begins to question his allegiance.
That doesn't really do it justice, but I don’t want to give too much away because I think it would spoil it. I would really appreciate feedback if you have any. I fully expect a publisher to ask for another edit if they accept it, so I likely have time to make a few changes.
Happy to answer questions on the forum, or please PM if that works for you.
JC
get yourself onto the SFFChronicles - SFF writing website (partly)I have plucked up the courage to post this after a few days of deliberating. I’ve accepted the last of my editors corrections and my novel is complete.
Apeiron is the first book series of that I have in the planning / draft stages, and I am happy to share a pdf with anyone interested. I specifically posted on this thread as I don’t think you need to be a complete hard-Sci-Fi nut to enjoy it. I’ve not written the blurb yet, so I am free-styling the next bit. It’s set on contemporary Earth and is a technology based thriller. The plot features a young man John Henry, who has a genetic abnormality which gives him access to mendicant abilities. He is recruited into a civilian research programme, which turns out to be supporting a US (where else?) military conspiracy to develop alien tech into a mind-control weapon. A terrorist organisation tries to prevent the military succeeding by attempting to destroy the research with a bomb, and John Henry is asked to infiltrate the insurgents. Things progress well until he discovers the group members share his genetic abnormality and he begins to question his allegiance.
That doesn't really do it justice, but I don’t want to give too much away because I think it would spoil it. I would really appreciate feedback if you have any. I fully expect a publisher to ask for another edit if they accept it, so I likely have time to make a few changes.
Happy to answer questions on the forum, or please PM if that works for you.
JC
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