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On December 17 2012 03:25 xpldngmn wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2012 15:12 sam!zdat wrote:On December 15 2012 10:54 xpldngmn wrote:
Phillip K. Dick [...] no bad apples, all killers, no fillers. You, my friend, have clearly not read all of his books  Maybe not ALL of them, please name one that was really bad. Are you referring to some repeating/recurring ideas like in "The Simulacra" and "We Can Build You"? I'd agree on "most movie adaptions are shit", though.
Well, you might try The Cosmic Puppets or Voices from the Street.
Recurring ideas are the opposite of a problem for me (I do academic work on science fiction and they provide excellent grounds for analysis)
edit: my point is only that PKD, while the most brilliantly imaginative american writer of the 20th C, was basically a per-word hack and a crazy person and some of his stuff is utter shit. I'll still go to my grave defending his apotheosis 
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This might have already been mentioned, but the search does not return any results, so...
I highly recommend The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. Top class steampunk. And while we're at this genre, Hodder's Burton & Swinburne series is also worth considering.
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Any good?
![[image loading]](http://img1.imagesbn.com/p/9780316129084_p0_v1_s260x420.JPG)
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
^ shield titan so no good
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But the first book is good, no?
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Hello guys, just finished reading "Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes. I've picked it up this morning and read it between work, lunch, dinner and other mandatory daily activities. Simply could not put it down. It was simply that good.
Damn, this book left a sorrow taste in my mouth. So brilliant...
On a side note, it's only a sci-fi and fantasy book as much as you let it be. For me it felt like fantasy.
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I really hope Harry Turtledove writes a sequel to the Darkness series...
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United States7481 Posts
On February 23 2013 13:09 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
But the first book is good, no?
it was an Eve Online joke
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READ 10 billion days, 100 billion nights by Ryu Mitsuse. It's considered the best Japanase science fiction novel of all time. It was only translated in 2011 (written in the 60s or 70s) so probably won't be finding it used or in a library (I couldn't). It is very good, the only book which immediately after finishing it the first thing I thought was "I have to read this again, not just at some point in the future but soon."
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On March 12 2013 09:07 Just_a_Moth wrote:
READ 10 billion days, 100 billion nights by Ryu Mitsuse. It's considered the best Japanase science fiction novel of all time. It was only translated in 2011 (written in the 60s or 70s) so probably won't be finding it used or in a library (I couldn't). It is very good, the only book which immediately after finishing it the first thing I thought was "I have to read this again, not just at some point in the future but soon."
it's trippy as fuck, really good book
jesus fights maitreya buddha with laser beams in the ruins of tokyo, what more could you ask for
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Leviathan's Wake was pretty good. It's well paced and an easy read. If you like space opera and aren't expecting too much from it I think it's definitely worth reading.
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I have not found any works of William Gibson mentioned in this thread. I consider his older works to be not only brilliantly written, but also touching on many interesting and important social issues resulting from technological development and the increasing political and economic power of large corporations. I think his books are a "must read" not only for lovers of science fiction and cyberpunk, but everyone else as well. Gibson's books generally focus on broken down anti-hero characters from the less fortunate parts of society, drug addicts, criminals, etc, and how they become play balls in the struggle between the very wealthy, the details of which they scarcely comprehend. The novels live from excellent drawing and development of the characters as well as a vividly imagined world where technology has penetrated most aspects of society and which is both somewhat frightening and somewhat intriguing.
The Sprawl Trilogy:
Neuromanecer
Count Zero
Mona Lisa Overdrive
The Bridge Trilogy
Virtual Light
Idoru
All Tomorrow's Parties
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no love for bigend cycle??? t.t
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So how do you guys find books in this genre now aday? I have a really hard time since most of the review site are filled with female romance fantasy readers, voting for all those silly vampire sex drive. The one time i got a book that neither vampire or female romance, it turns out to be a teenager rebellion book with a lot of spellings and grammar mistakes (I KNOW). Is there a good review site that any of you rely on or you have a special method of judging a book before reading it?
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I only trust the opinions of friends or smart people, review sites are not good places for either. Google, cheap bookstores, and libraries are where I'd go otherwise.
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On March 12 2013 10:51 farvacola wrote:
I only trust the opinions of friends or smart people, review sites are not good places for either. Google, cheap bookstores, and libraries are where I'd go otherwise.
google isnt really the way to go imo since often in time the only people who wrote reviews for a book are people who like it enough to spend more time on supporting it. Im kinda switching to ebook now as i just recently got a tablet(nexus 7) and it helps out a ton in term of traveling.
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Well, I don't really care for 3rd party reviews when it comes to literature in general, so I was suggesting Google more along the lines that one use it to search for authors, related genres, similar works, those sorts of things. And I'd say that having an ebook does not prevent one from getting a lot of use out of simply walking around a bookstore and perusing
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On March 12 2013 07:45 tertos wrote:
Hello guys, just finished reading "Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes. I've picked it up this morning and read it between work, lunch, dinner and other mandatory daily activities. Simply could not put it down. It was simply that good.
Damn, this book left a sorrow taste in my mouth. So brilliant...
On a side note, it's only a sci-fi and fantasy book as much as you let it be. For me it felt like fantasy.
I read the short story version, which was pretty slick. Still frustrates me that the author only took the premise halfway, by taking the retarded human as narrator instead of Algernon.
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Finland4400 Posts
Hey, shameless bump. I'm almost done with a Song of Ice and Fire now so I'm looking for similar books, not too strict on what I'm looking as long as it's a mature(ish) fantasy book.
So far the four that I took notice of are:
The First Law
The Black Company
The Kingkiller Chronicle
Malazan Book of Fallen (Heard it might be an idea to read this in some weird order, any truth in that?)
Any suggestions on which of these I should read first or any other books I should look up?
While at it where do europeans buy their books (physical+english language) from?
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On April 19 2013 22:30 Vaelone wrote:
Hey, shameless bump. I'm almost done with a Song of Ice and Fire now so I'm looking for similar books, not too strict on what I'm looking as long as it's a mature(ish) fantasy book.
So far the four that I took notice of are:
The First Law
The Black Company
The Kingkiller Chronicle
Malazan Book of Fallen (Heard it might be an idea to read this in some weird order, any truth in that?)
Any suggestions on which of these I should read first or any other books I should look up?
While at it where do europeans buy their books (physical+english language) from?
I have read 8 1/2 books of Malazan:
It starts off REALLY strong. Book 1 is great and Book 2 is just mindblowingly awesome. IMO it got a little weaker after that, but was still excellent. I stopped reading them for a while (I read all 8 1/2 in like... a month) but will definitely finish the series at some point. If you want a more "mature" and gritty fantasy like SoIaF than Malazan is pretty much that.
I wouldn't read them in any weird order. Like... I guess you could and get away with it, but you might miss some epic reveals and some really cool plot points might make no sense. IDK though, maybe some fans have figured out a "better" way. For me, reading them in order was perfectly fine and definitely what I would recommend.
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EPT
