LibriumArcana.Games

Recommend a book that you consider one of the best you've read.

I'll start off with an Asimov classic: Foundation.

If you haven't read it, you really should. It's a classic in every sense of the word.

Eisenhorn.

Some of Dan Abnett's best work.

David Drake, the 40K Black Library, Heinlein, S.N. LeWitt, and... yes... Harry Turtledove. Though his quality has seriously declined.

The Physics of Star Trek by Laurence Krauss. A fun read, both Trek fulfilling and educational at the same time. Check it out.

A good Star Trek book I consider a good investment is Harlan Ellison's original script for "City on the Edge of Forever." It has a quite lengthy introductory essay that has Ellison ranting over the injustices Gene Rottenshitberry inflicted over the treatment of the screenplay. It's great if you hate Trekkies and their fanatical devotion to a creatively bankrupt and just plain arsehole of a man, and Ellison makes no attempt to disguise his contempt for it, the franchise, and the people who continue it (and he makes no distinction between the suits who see ST as a cash cow, and the ST nerds who lap it up).

Oh right, the script. Yeah, that's good too. No seriously, it is good. I mean better than the aired version. And there are things in his screenplay that could have and should have made it into the aired version because they were literally cheap - like the character Trooper. You have to read it to understand. And the ending is so much better than the aired version. The aired version has Kirk stopping McCoy from saving Edith Keeler's life, when Ellison correctly decided that this was bullshit. In his original screenplay, Kirk freezes - yes, freezes - and the villain of the piece (instead of McCoy stupidly injecting himself with the crazy-juice and going back in time and fucking everything up, a crewman that peddles drugs goes back to escape the authorities.) was the one who sees Keeler crossing the road and the oncoming truck, and he moves to save her but Spock - the cold and logical Spock - stops him.

The book also has many comments by people like Peter David, DC Fontana, and members of the cast, including George Takei and the late Deforest Kelley.

Stofsk wrote:Recommend a book that you consider one of the best you've read.

Eisenhorn by Dan Abnett. It's quite a character peice, it's first person veiw point really lets you ride along in his head which creates a terrific bond with the title character. It's also chock full of action, memorable characters, and just plain, old fashioned gothic horror. Don't let it's spin off nature fool you, it's an excellent peice of literature.

The Big One by Stuart Slade. Alternate history done right and with a great deal of accuracy, logic, and spirit. You'll learn alot along with enjoy a first class story. Hard not to like it.

Troublemakers by Harlan Ellison. It's an anthology of Harlan Ellison at his most glib, twisted, and loud mouthed. Quite worth the read.

Rendevous with Rama by Arthur C Clarke. A gem that has fallen out of favor; it's a great story of exploration, mystery, with a nice bit of action. Of all Clarke's I like this and it's sequels (well, until about the second half of Revealed). It's pretty darn good and easily one the master's best.

Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card

Not sure if it falls under the catagory correctly or not being truely Cyberpunk but....
Snow Crash - Neil Stephenson

can't beleive no one mentioned this one
Hitchhicker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

The Gateway Saga - Fredrick Poul

B4UTRUST wrote:Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card

can't beleive no one mentioned this one
Hitchhicker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

I like both of those books well enough but they're certainly not favorites by any stretch.

The problem with Ender's Game oddly enough wasn't that novel but the 3 novels that Card wrote following that trying to live off the hype of Ender's Game. I mean Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide and Children of the Mind. Utter crap!

But I do have to say his other novels for the enderverse, Ender's Shadow, Shadow of the Hedgemon, Shadow of the Giant were all really good and added a lot to the whole 'verse but failed to live up to Ender's game.

I didn't much like Ender's Game, but other than that I won't do any more Card beating.

Dread Empire Falls by Walter John Williams. Holy book crack Batman! This is it. Humanity was conquered millenia ago by an interstellar empire. Now the last of the master race is dying and the first race conquered wants to take their place at the head of the food chain. The coming civil war is seen through the eyes of two naval officers serving in a navy that hasn't fought anybody in centuries and is more of a social climbing apparatus than a military. The Praxis is the first book. The third is do out latter this year.

Songbird/Songmaster(can't remember exactly), by OSC.

War of the Worlds -HG Wells

Simply an awesome book and I can't wait for the British version that remains true to the book to come out in theatres.

Sadly, reading seems to have become a less entertaining past time for me. Mostly do to lack of time and new reading material. I used to read a lot during my younger years, but now most of my reading in online material.

I need to get some new books...I miss curling up and reading some good stories.

Dune, the original Foundation trilogy, Atlas shrugged (technically sci-fi), Hitchhiker's guide, the collected science fiction stories of Arthur C Clarke, Childhoods end, Enders game.
There are a lot more, but I'm not in Israel yet so I cant remember which ones are which (I have a very visual memory).

Neuromancer, by William Gibson.

I have to say I'm a huge Gibson fan, but I don't think that's clouding my judgment in this instance. Neuromancer is an excellent read.

Courier wrote:Neuromancer, by William Gibson.

I have to say I'm a huge Gibson fan, but I don't think that's clouding my judgment in this instance. Neuromancer is an excellent read.

Fully agree on Neuromancer, and Burning Chrome had some excellent shorts, but I wasn't too enamored of his later works. I kind of tailed off around Mona Lisa Overdrive.

Perhaps it's just me, but I found Neuromancer hard to get into. I haven't read anything more from him other than a script of Alien 3 he apparently wrote (or some internet guy with the exact same name). Let me put it this way: if his script had been the one they went with, Alien 3 would have been pretty fucking cool.

Gibson has a fairly... dense writing style, but it worked for me in Neuromancer.

I also didn't like Neuromancer, for good sci-fi i would recommend:
The Hyperian Cantos, Endymion, Rise of endymion, Olympus and Ilium for FANTASTIC sci-fi.

Stofsk wrote:Perhaps it's just me, but I found Neuromancer hard to get into. I haven't read anything more from him other than a script of Alien 3 he apparently wrote (or some internet guy with the exact same name). Let me put it this way: if his script had been the one they went with, Alien 3 would have been pretty fucking cool.

Neuromancer kicked ass and Gibson did write that script.