24-12-2002 11:06									#1
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OK, I'm looking for good (or even decent) science fiction, that has nothing to do with Star Trek, Star Wars, or any other TV show, that involves either time travel, alternate history, or major galactic wars. Preferably all of them, naturally.

Any ideas?

	24-12-2002 11:10									#2
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What? Like a book or another TV show other than Star Wars/Trek?

	24-12-2002 11:11									#3
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Anything Asimov. And for alternate history, I would take a look at Harry Turtledove's books.

That should give you something to start with.

	24-12-2002 11:13									#4
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Quantum Leap is great. Red Dwarf is amazingly funny sci-fi.

	24-12-2002 11:15									#5
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Edan:

Yeah, I really enjoy Turtledove.

Apocalypse:

No, no TV shows, and I'm also kinda sick of Star Wars/Star Trek. Used to be a big fan, but not really anymore.

	24-12-2002 11:15									#6
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For starters, try Isaac Asimov's "Foundation" series, Frank Herbert's "Dune" series, and Vernor Vinge's "A Fire Upon the Deep"/"A Deepness in the Sky" series.

	24-12-2002 11:17									#7
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Asimov rules for general sci-fi ponderings and good stories, Red Dwarf is ****ing hilarious (as is Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - read it now), but Dune is the **** when it comes to establishing functioning, believable sci-fi realities.

	24-12-2002 11:18									#8
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Are comics out of the question?

	24-12-2002 11:25									#9
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I've read Hitchhiker's Guide, and it's great.

I am not really a fan of comics, DD.

	24-12-2002 11:27									#10
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As far as time travel/alternate history goes, Poul Anderson is pretty good.

	24-12-2002 11:43									#11
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Have some fun with the Dune and Foundation books... they'll last you a good while, with much general thinking thrown in. Ultimately, you can't beat HHGttG. It says everything that needs to be said, ****s your head, and makes you laugh. But the above serieses (sp?) will waste a lot of time in a fun way.

	24-12-2002 12:15									#12
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Starship Troopers
The Door into Summer
The Pilgrim (doesn't have a galactic war but has a human/alien conflict).

	24-12-2002 12:28									#13
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Foward has some great ones. Both Dragon's Egg and Starquake are excellent. I also got one of his new books but haven't started on it yet.

	24-12-2002 15:36									#14
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A few classics to consider

H.G. Wells - The Time Machine
E.E. Smith - The Lensman series
Fritz Leiber - The Big Time

Also,
Stephen Baxter - The Time Ships (a sequel to Wells' book).

	24-12-2002 15:38									#15
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O.k., off the top of my slightly less sunburned bonce:

Ursula K Le Guin: The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness.

Her later works are also well worth picking up, as his fantasy sequence, the Earthsea Quintet.

J.G. Ballard: High Rise, Concrete Island and Crash. The science fiction poet of urban alienation and breakdown. Crash is infinitely better than the Cronenberg film.

David Brin: The Uplift War series (six novels and some short stories). An embattled humanity with intelligent chimps and dolphins as allies- with a galactic struggle for recovered artefacts of an eons old civilization as a backdrop.

Dan Simmons: The Hyperion sequence. Elements of space opera, but a tremendous set of ideas.

George R R Martin: Tuf Voyaging

Samuel R Delany: Einstein Intersection, Babel-17, Dhalgren and Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand.

Greg Bear: Eon sequence

Philip K ****: We Can Build You, Time Out Of Joint, Ubik, The Zap Gun.

William Gibson: Count Zero, Neuromancer, Mona Lisa Overdrive, All Tomorrow's Parties.

Richard Kardrey: Metrophage

Alternate realities/histories:

Turtledove: Agent of Byzantium. He has yet to do better than this. His Great War series I find too prolix, and too unlikely at times.

Michael P Kube McDowell: Alternities. A chilling novel set in alternate Americas- with a psychopathic senator with access to the other worlds, and a taste for sadistic murder.

Robert Charles Wilson: Gypsies- what if where you could go was determined by your will? - the stronger your will, the better your alternate destination.

Ward Moore: Bring the Jubilee- the best what if the South won? novel by far.

Harry Harrison: A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah! George Washington lost the Revolution, and his descendant is helping construct a transatlantic connection with the mother of parliaments.

Kim Stanley Robinson: The Years of Rice and Salt. Imagine a mutated black plague- it depopulates Europe, leaving only a few Europeans in the Orkneys, and off Ireland. A renascent Islam fills the void in Spain, in the Balkans, China colonizes parts of Australia and the Americas, and the Great War is fought between China and Indian civilizations and the Islamic world.

Joanna Russ: The Female Man

Michael Moorcock: Behold the Man

Philip K **** The Man in the High Castle

	24-12-2002 15:40									#16
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I like Ian M Banks, I don't know if he is considered good Sci Fi

	24-12-2002 15:44									#17
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Molly, have you read Kim Stanley Robinsons other books? I loved Red Mars, was lukewarm to Blue Mars and hated Green Mars... So I'm just curious how The Years of Rice and Salt stock up to that.

	24-12-2002 15:48									#18
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David, everything written by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. They write well on their own, but their combined works are incredible.

The ones that stand out are "Lucifers Hammer" and "The Mote in Gods Eye".

If you ever were a roleplayer, you'll probably love their "Dream Park" series as well.

Pournelles own books are also the best militant Sci-Fi you can find, if you are in to that.

	24-12-2002 16:11									#19
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Arthur C. Clarke and Ben Bova. I think they coauthored the Rama series.

	24-12-2002 16:52									#20
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10-1 I'm just repeating what everyone else has said, but...
Asimov - everything. Especially the Foundation series. (Plus the Second Foundation series by Greg Bear, Gregory Benford and David Brin).
Frank Herbert - Dune. A must-read.
Ian Irvine - Shadow on the Glass. Yes, it's fantasy, not sci-fi, but still.
Stel Pavlou - Decipher
Stephen Lawhead - Empyrion

	24-12-2002 16:59									#21
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quote: Arthur C. Clarke and Ben Bova. I think they coauthored the Rama series.

Rama good. Rama very good. Well, except the third book and parts of the fourth, and the ending. Maybe it wasnt that good.

Gnu : What was wrong with Green Mars? I just finished reading Blue and IMO it is the weakest part(but still great). Red and Green were amazing.

Edit : The co-author was Gentry Lee, not Bova.

	24-12-2002 17:07									#22
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You can't do better than the Forever War by Joe Haldeman.

Banks is considered to be the best British SCi Fi author writing at the present time. Personally, I think some of his stuff ranks equal with anything produded in the last decade. By the time he stops he will probably be considered one of the great literary figures of the late20th/Early21st centuries.

Counterglow is having a bit of a Banks love in at the moment - go visit The Film, Fiction and Writing Forum there.

	24-12-2002 19:35									#23
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Eli, maybe I'm confusing the gren and blue. Which one is the second? Either way, it was the third one that I couldn't stand... No science, all politics...

	24-12-2002 19:39									#24
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Blue is the third, and I agree with you on this(just dont quote that in other threads ).

	24-12-2002 20:02									#25
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David G. Hartwell has edited and published outstanding anthologies of terrific sci-fi short stories for the past 6 years. The books are entitled : "Year's Best SF" to "Year's Best SF 6". I highly recommend them. Every story is a masterpiece designed to provoke thought.

	24-12-2002 21:15									#26
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Clear Skies:

Yes, I read Decipher, and that is one of my favorite books...any similar books that you are aware of?

	24-12-2002 21:42									#27
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quote: Originally posted by David Floyd I am not really a fan of comics, DD.

Heathen!

	24-12-2002 21:55									#28
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How could I forget to mention anything by Peter F Hamilton?

	24-12-2002 22:06									#29
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yeah, Larry Niven is truly a master. he comes up with the neatest aliens. as for poul anderson and jerry pournelle, i forget which, but whoever wrote "the years of the city" that book left me wanting. it never truly arrived as it were.

although he's not sci-fi, Clive Barker spins a great yarn as well. check out "the great and secret show." it's a killer.

	24-12-2002 22:14									#30
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Asimove and Herbert have already been recommended, so I'll suggest Larry Niven's Ringworld and Greg Egan's hardc0re Diaspora.