7 ms·
Ask HN: What is your favorite fiction book?
There are many threads that discuss one’s favorite programming or technology or startup related books. I’d love to hear from the community what fiction books they enjoy!
- Rzor 5y agoCurrently reading Excession by Iain M. Banks and I'm having a blast. I really like Use of Weapons and I think Dune is great.
- dave333 5y agoChronologically starting with children's: Swallows and Amazon series. Stranger in a Strange Land, The Man In The Maze, Tau Zero, Asimovs Foundation series. All Jane Austen's work: Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Persuasion, Mansfield Park, Emma, and Northhanger Abbey.
- Amy_W 5y ago[dead]
- mmarq 5y agoThe Master and Margarita
- themodelplumber 5y ago- The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas - The Aubrey-Maturin Series by Patrick O'Brian - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon - Watchmen by various - Star Trek: Doctor's Orders by Diane Duane - The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton - Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini - Ice Station Zebra by Alistair MacLean - The Cthulhu Casebooks - Sherlock Holmes and the Sussex Sea-Devils by James Lovegrove - Contact by Carl Sagan - 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke Top 11? :-)
- itsthecourier 5y ago
- dgellow 5y ago“Destination: Void” and it’s sequel “The Jesus Incident” (I didn’t read the two other books of the serie) by Frank Herbert. “We” by Yevgeny Zamyatin. Insane to think this book has been written in 1920.
- jakebasile 5y agoWorld War Z Roadside picnic
- mndrix 5y ago- A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr. - Anathem by Neal Stephenson
- stevesimmons 5y agoI'm so glad you mentioned this. When I was a teenager, I was given a big box of classic 1950s/1960s scifi books. A Canticle for Leibowitz was one of them.
- dominotw 5y agothe god of small things
- Rincewind99 5y agoLittle Brother by Cory Doctorow
- beginning_end 5y ago"Come, Thou Tortoise", by Jessica Grant.
- ioman 5y agoPretty much anything by Neal Stephenson but especially: The Baroque Cycle trilogy Anathem
- edmcnulty101 5y agoCannery Row, Tortilla Flats - Steinbeck Smillas sense of Snow-Hoeg Currently reading The Expanse series and it's great.
- mindcrime 5y agoHuh... tough call. If you use "number of times read" as a metric that approximates how much I enjoy a particular book, then my favorite is almost certainly one of: - Neuromancer by William Gibson - The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne - False Memory by Dean Koontz I think a good case could be made for a handful of others also. Specifically: - Nineteen Eighty Four by Orwell - The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand - Foundation by Asimov - The Lord of the Rings by Tolkien are all strong contenders as well.
- v-erne 5y agoThe Mysterious Island - is this the one where they invent civilization from scratch after baloon incident ? If yes then I loved it as a child (it was one of my first "serious" fiction books that I read and somehow I imagine that it sparked my intrest in technology)
- mindcrime 5y agoYep, that's it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mysterious_Island https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mysterious_Island
- alex_young 5y agoAnything by Douglas Adams, but especially his Dirk Gently books. If I have to pick one, The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul.
- hirundo 5y agoShogun
- atmb4u 5y agoAnything by Liu Cixin - Three Body Problem and the Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy specifically
- esarbe 5y agoAh, I tried to like the books, didn't succeed. Maybe just not for me.
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y agoI feel the same. Maybe 'it doesn't translate'. Or the translation was bad. Though the concepts were interesting enough to let me read them to the end. Left unsatisfied...
- docdeek 5y agoMessiah, by Boris Starling Red Storm Rising, by Tom Clancy First Among Equals, by Jeffrey Archer
- ivyirwin 5y agoThe River Why by David James Duncan. A coming of age, meaning of life book with fishing as the central metaphor.
- Dowwie 5y agoDune, book 1. You can take away so much from this book. The Bene Gesserit's "Litany Against Fear" and its application makes the book worth reading, and that's just the tip of the iceberg! My favorite part of the book but involves reunion. friendship and loyalty. The audiobook version of Dune, book 1, is also excellent. It includes dramatic acting and ambient music. Neil Gaiman's Sandman dramatic audiobook (part I) is so good. I feel so lucky that while looking up the link to the book that I just discovered Part II was published in 9/2021. Highly recommend: https://www.amazon.com/The-Sandman/dp/B086WQ7J62 https://www.amazon.com/The-Sandman/dp/B086WQ7J62
- esarbe 5y agoSo many good books to recommend. Here's a selection - Diaspora by Greg Egan - Pushing Ice by Alastair Raynolds - Watership Down by Richard Adams - The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle - The Price of Nothing by R. Scott Baker - Blindsight by Peter Watts
- bryanrasmussen 5y agoIn no particular order, except that #1 is #1. 1. Adventures of Huckelberry Finn 2. Little, Big 3. Winter's Tale 4. Titus Groan 5. Gormenghast 6. Titus Alone 7. Dune 8. The manuscript found in saragossa 9. The Three Musketeers 10. A Scanner Darkly 11. The Man in the High Castle 12. Do Androids dream of Electronic Sheep 13. Ubik 14. Valis, basically almost every book by Phil Dick. 15. Life on the Mississippi. 16. The Garden of Forking Paths 17. Dhalgren 18. The Gods of Pegāna, basically all the fantasy work of Dunsany. 19. The Lathe of Heaven. Anything by LeGuin. 20. Their Eyes Were Watching God 21. The Master and Margarita 22. The Gulag Archipelago
- jimmygrapes 5y ago>14. Valis, basically almost every book by Phil Dick. I can't tell if you mean all of PKD not otherwise mentioned goes in that spot, or if VALIS is every PKD book. Or both.
- bryanrasmussen 5y agoI meant all PKD not otherwise mentioned, although as he wrote a lot there are a few I don't care for.
- snewman 5y agoThe Phantom Tollbooth The Princess Bride (even better than the movie)
- voisin 5y agoHard to pick a favourite so I’ll recommend the latest, which I thought was fabulous: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. It has also been turned into a limited miniseries that I am excited to watch. I enjoyed it so much I’ve just started another of her books, The Glass Hotel.
- jemfinch 5y agoBlindsight by Peter Watts Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
- URfejk 5y agoThe Quincunx A Fire Upon the Deep An Instance of the Fingerpost
- sshine 5y ago#1-4 are: Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson, The Cyberiad, by Stanisław Lem, and The Aleph, by Jorge Luis Borges, and Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman. In no particular order.
- Dowwie 5y agoHBO is producing a Snow Crash series.
- mprime1 5y agoI had no idea and just searched online. Looks like HBO is no longer working on it: https://www.reddit.com/r/television/comments/qujstr/hbo_max_tv_adaptation_of_neal_stephensons_novel/ https://www.reddit.com/r/television/comments/qujstr/hbo_max_... > The reason you haven’t heard about it is because they passed on it in June. So it’s no longer an HBO Max project. It’s reverted to Paramount. And Kennedy/Marshall.
- livueta 5y agoTop one is basically impossible, but I can do an unordered top ten: - Catch-22 - Dune - The Dispossessed - Illuminatus! - Kafka on the Shore - Use of Weapons - Blood Meridian - The Book of the New Sun - A Deepness in the Sky - From the New World
- VladimirGolovin 5y ago"Tiger, Tiger" (or "The Stars My Destination" in the USA) by Alfred Bester.
- squeaky-clean 5y agoI'm glad everyone else is also not picking just 1 book :p The Hitchhiker's Guide series is undeniably first for me. Aside from the hilarity and great writing it's also very nostalgic for me. One Christmas my dad gave me the Hitchhiker's collection, Going Postal, and Catch 22, all great books. Permutation City by Greg Egan. Found out about it from an HN comment. If you're interested in scifi about AI and brain simulation, this is it. Also looking at my bookshelf I've got to throw in Multiversity by Grant Morrison (and 8 great artists). It's a graphic novel but it's just so darn good. If you're not a comic-book superhero fan, it might not be too great. If you are, it's a great meta story and really rewards analyzing it for symbolism. Grant Morrison really knows how to treat comics as their own unique medium. Each chapter is supposed to be the #1 issue to a new comic series (in different canon universes drawn by different artists), except a DC multi-verse event tangles all their stories together.
- IdiocyInAction 5y agoSome of my favorites, in no particular order: Foundation by Isaac Asimov Dune by Frank Herbert Permutation City by Greg Egan Blindsight by Peter Watts Anathem by Neal Stephenson Story of your Life and Others and Exhalation by Ted Chiang Chiang in particular is an excellent writer who explores interesting concepts using speculative fiction. A lot of his stories stuck with me, like the one about lookism. Egan also writes excellent stories with very well thought-out and consistent worlds, though the character writing and plotlines is not that strong.
- mindcrime 5y ago+1 for Permutation City. Greg Egan is great. I suspect that people who like Permutation City may also like Glasshouse by Charles Stross.
- nicwolff 5y agoMockingbird, by Walter Tevis, about the first man to learn to read, centuries after humanity delegated even intellectual labor to robots; and the last robot overseer, suicidally bored with his assignment. Tevis also wrote The Man Who Fell To Earth – and, somewhat surprisingly, The Queen's Gambit and The Hustler. The Shipkiller, by Justin Scott – dated but a great revenge adventure. And of current releases I really enjoyed Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky.
- MattPalmer1086 5y agoAh yes, Mockingbird. Haven't read that in ages. Really good.
- nikivi 5y agoTed Chiang - Story of Your Life https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Story_of_Your_Life https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Story_of_Your_Life
- nmaley 5y agoIn no particular order: - The siege of Krishnapur by J G Farrell - War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy - The Radetsky March, by Joseph Roth - The Leopard, by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa - Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell - Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy - Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel - 1984, by George Orwell - Never Mind, by Edward St Aubyn
- cheza 5y agoDune
- pjbeam 5y agoNeuromancer
- jka 5y agoTwo of Iain Banks' works; one with his middle initial, and one without: - Use of Weapons "I could try composing wonderful musical works, or day-long entertainment epics, but what would that do? Give people pleasure? My wiping this table gives me pleasure. And people come to a clean table, which gives them pleasure. And anyway" - the man laughed - "people die; stars die; universes die. What is any achievement, however great it was, once time itself is dead? Of course, if all I did was wipe tables, then of course it would seem a mean and despicable waste of my huge intellectual potential. But because I choose to do it, it gives me pleasure. And," the man said with a smile, "it's a good way of meeting people. So where are you from, anyway?" - The Crow Road "It was the day my grandmother exploded"
- _frkl 5y agoNo idea how much I'd like it if I'd read it today, but 'Jitterbug perfume' by Tom Robbins is probably the one that I liked most (or strongest), of all the books that were favourites at different times in my life.
- freedom2099 5y agoPandora’s star by Peter Hamilton Trilogy of the Void by Peter Hamilton
- ochronus 5y agoThe Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
- servytor 5y agoAnything by Cordwainer Smith[0]. He more or less invented psychological warfare, so his science fiction is quite interesting. It revolves around the "Instrumentality of Mankind"[1]. He created a completely consistent universe, and it is probably some of the best science fiction to ever be written. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordwainer_Smith https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordwainer_Smith [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumentality_of_Mankind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumentality_of_Mankind
- carapace 5y agoGene Wolfe's "Book of the New Sun" It's a masterpiece. Not just of sci-fi/fantasy but of literature. I have to be careful: if I pick it up and start reading I tend to sink into it and read until the end. In a sense, it's a bog-standard sword-&-sorcery novel, but you don't notice it. I shudder still at the memory of the analeptic alzabo... - - - - Dune, of course. I reread it every year or two, just for pleasure. (Don't get me started on that latest movie attempt. Not a complete failure, but very disappointing. At least it gets people to buy the book.) - - - - Beyond those two specific books I have favorite writers, Larry Niven and Vernor Vinge are probably my favorite authors (in case it's not clear when it comes to fiction I only read sci-fi and some fantasy. I don't see the point of non-sci-fi fiction. Just read history, eh?)
- MattPalmer1086 5y agoBook of the New Sun is a masterpiece. It's stayed with me like few other books have.
- carapace 5y agoYeah, it grows on you.
- 0xbadc0de5 5y agoPandora's Star & Judas Unchained - Peter Hamilton Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson Neuromancer - William Gibson Foundation - Isaac Asimov Altas Shrugged & The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand 1984 - George Orwell We Are Legion (We Are Bob) - Dennis Taylor Culture Series (especially Surface Detail & Use of Weapons) - Ian M Banks Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir
- MattPalmer1086 5y agoI can't pick a favourite so I'll just list some books I love that might not be as well known as some others here. * Last and First Men, by Olaf Stapledon * Way Station, by Clifford D. Simak * The Gap (series), by Stephen Donaldson * The Golden Apples of the Sun, by Ray Bradbury * Tau Zero, by Poul Anderson
- danthewireman 5y agoFeet of Clay by Terry Pratchett Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino This Book is Full of Spiders::: Seriously Dude, Don't Touch It by David Wong
- runjake 5y agoThe Postman by David Brin The Dog Stars by Peter Heller I Am Legend by Richard Matheson Anything by Dalton Fury (RIP) One Second After by William Forstchen Black Autumn by Jeff Kirkham
- memalign 5y agoKen Grimwood - Replay It’s a fun story where the main character gets to relive part of his life. Even though I can’t replay in my own life, the story still gave me a lot to think about and helps me live happily (and prevent too much existential dread from creeping in).
- skydhash 5y agoSo far: The Malazan Book of the Fallen Shadows of the Apt Murderbot Imperial Radch Youjo Senki
- ZeroGravitas 5y agoSome recent-ish ones, because many of my classic ones have been mentioned: Rotherweird by Andrew Caldecott Piranesi by Susanna Clarke The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco. Here by Richard McGuire The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
- Anthony-G 5y agoIt’s hard to pick a favourite but I figure a decent rule of thumb would be to list books I’ve read at least twice: - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values by Robert M. Pirsig - The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien - The Silmarillion by JRR Tolkien - Watchmen by Alan Moore - From Hell by Alan Moore - V for Vendetta by Alan Moore - The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series by Alan Moore - Dune by Frank Herbert - Immortality by Milan Kundera - first 3 books in the The Dark Tower series by Stephen King - The Dark Half by Stephen King - The Sandman series by Neil Gaiman - Coalescent by Stephen Baxter - 1984 by George Orwell - Animal Farm by George Orwell - Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
- itbeho 5y agoNine Princes in Amber - Roger Zelazny The Mediterranean Caper - Clive Cussler Term Limits - Vince Flynn My Side of the Mountain - Jean George
- mstaoru 5y agoThe Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien A Song of Ice and Fire, George R.R. Martin The Mars trilogy, Kim Stanley Robinson Hyperion Cantos, Dan Simmons The Collector, John Fowles
- anotherevan 5y agoThe First Fifteen Lives of Harry August[1] by Claire North is the first book that jumps to mind when asked this question. The Bobiverse series[2] by Dennis E. Taylor is a great fun read or audiobook (I've done both!). The Xandri Corelel[3] series by Kaia Sønderby. I read both books and immediately started looking around to see if there were more. I Am Not a Serial Killer[4] by Dan Wells was an enjoyable surprise. The Martian and Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. Of older vintage that I find I've revisited over the years are: The Chrysalids[5] by John Wyndham. The White Mountains, The City of Gold and Lead, and The Pool of Fire which comprise The Tripod Trilogy[6] by John Christopher. And the oft mentioned Dune by Frank Herbert is a book a reread every few years. Love the first book, don't care for the rest that much. Favourite authors in general would have to include the following: Robert Sawyer, Timothy Zahn (when he's not writing Star Wars stuff), Michael Connelly, and Harlan Coben. Always enjoyable reads. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18295861-the-first-fifteen-lives-of-harry-august https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18295861-the-first-fifte... [2] https://www.goodreads.com/series/192752-bobiverse https://www.goodreads.com/series/192752-bobiverse [3] https://www.goodreads.com/series/199207-xandri-corelel https://www.goodreads.com/series/199207-xandri-corelel [4] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7617119-i-am-not-a-serial-killer https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7617119-i-am-not-a-seria... [5] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/826845.The_Chrysalids https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/826845.The_Chrysalids [6] https://www.goodreads.com/series/40878-the-tripods https://www.goodreads.com/series/40878-the-tripods
- Anthony-G 5y ago> I Am Not a Serial Killer by Dan Wells was an enjoyable surprise. I saw the film adaptation¹ in a local cinema without knowing anything about it beforehand and was very pleasantly surprised by this gem of a film. Thanks for the reminder; I must check out the book. ¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Not_a_Serial_Killer_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Not_a_Serial_Killer_(film...
- helloworld11 5y agoI have the exact same book come to mind as first choice. "The First 15 lives of Harry August" was absurdly good.. Her other book "Touch" isn't too bad either. The Harry August book is somewhat similar to another one that I also very much recommend. It's called "Replay", by Ken Grimwood
- kiliancs 5y agoSome very good ones have been mentioned that I won't repeat. Here's my recommendation: Confessions, by Jaume Cabré I'll just quote a Goodreads review [1] I agree with: > I've never read anything quite like this, such is its artistry and guile. Like a thief in the night it sneaks then all of a sudden it falls upon you like an avalanche. Truly it is a once in a decade novel, and why it is not world famous is a mystery to me. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4010685836?book_show_action=true https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4010685836?book_show_a...
- agigao 5y ago- The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (1991) - Jose Saramago - The War of the End of the World (1981) - Mario Vargas Llosa Favourites among the books I’ve read lately. Other than that, there are plenty to enjoy some serious fiction from authors such as: - Homer (watching Troy is way too far from the book) - Thomas Mann - The Magic Mountain is top pick among his works - Robert Musil - The Man Without Qualities I think is one of the finest pieces of literature - Albert Camus - pick any of his works, but the shortest is considered to be the finest - The Stranger (~ 80-100 pages) - Herman Melville - Moby Dick was a wonderful journey I enjoyed thoroughly - Leo Tolstoy - War and Peace is a book that will raise the bar for fiction, I couldn’t start a new one for a month after finishing it, tried but I was still living in the book. I remember taking a vacation at work to finish the book, couldn’t put it down. Was working as a Java dev at The Ministry of Internal Affairs, must have been 20 or 21 yrs old. - Dostoevsky - bot reading any of the big five is a missed opportunity: The Demons (one of the finest political fiction work), Brothers Karamazov (Will drain you from emotions), Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, Notes from Underground - Oh, Cervantes - Don Quixote was the book took me 2 years and some more life experience when it started to tick in my mind the depth, importance of the book, perhaps it was 24 or 25. - And so on, it will be useless to list them all, and many will slip from my mind :) One important realization an decision I made at the age 18 was that I had to ask around, listen to people who know world literature inside out and follow their suggestions. The reason? At first I wanted to read everything, but pretty quickly that started to sound like a dumb idea which ignored reality and life longevity. Next decision was to read finest of the written works. And the strategy worked. Books or authors I didn’t enjoy much? - Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 100 Years of Solitude - finished it this month and the story felt like the one I’ve already experienced before, emotions I’ve had. If I had read it 8-10 years ago, I would have been dazzled l, but at the age of 29, not much. - Kafka - The Tower was an awful translation, I felt that, which isn’t authors fault. The next book went smoothly but nothing groundbreaking. - Ishiguro - mediocre - Turgenev - mediocre, again - Calvino - despite my love and respect towards a very good friend, his suggestion didn’t work for me, the book felt like - the author knows too well what’s he’s writing and that’s not a good thing. At first author writes and then he reads it as a reader just to find out what he has written. Calvino and many many more know what they’re writing and hence the mediocrity. - etc. My next friend will be Ulysses, dragged it a bit too long and finally 2022 is a good year to read it. Software engineering takes awful a lot of time and energy that it leaves a narrow path to reading something other than technical books and documentation, but the path exists and with discipline we can still enjoy finest pieces of philosophy and literature. P.S. Many of the printed products are marketed and sold as “books”, but book is a title ought to be earned.
- caelyx 5y agoA few favourites, in no particular order: - Iain M. Bank's Culture series, particularly Player of Games - Vernor Vinge's Rainbow's End - Michael Marshall Smith's Only Forward
- Kabalmysteriet 5y agoThe Solitaire Mystery by Jostein Gaarder
- fm2606 5y agoTen Little Indians by Agatha Christie The Odyssey by Homer
- CodeGlitch 5y agoThe Chronicles of Thomas Covenant: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronicles_of_Thomas_Covenant https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronicles_of_Thomas_Cov... Some people love it, some hate it. Also by the same author, The Gap Cycle: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gap_Cycle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gap_Cycle
- marniewebb 5y agoI loved those books when I was in high school. I wonder how they’d hold up today.
- nkzednan 5y agoSome books that I have really liked: - Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss(waiting on the third book....) - Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch (also waiting on the rest of the series...) - The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu - the first book was ok but I really liked the second - The Dark Forest - Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino - House In the Cerulean Sea - How to Stop Time by Matt Haig Others that I like: The Rosie Project, The Books of Babel, A long way to a small Angry Planet, Wool/Shift/Dust, Lockstep, All the Light We Cannot See, Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore, Earth Abides, Project Hail Mary, The Martian Also, check out https://www.reddit.com/r/suggestmeabook/ https://www.reddit.com/r/suggestmeabook/
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y agoSome, but not all of her Sci-Fi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._J._Cherryh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._J._Cherryh Mostly anything from the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance%E2%80%93Union_universe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance%E2%80%93Union_univers... with the exception of the 'Mri Wars / Faded Sun Trilogy', 'Merovingen Nights', Morgaine Cycle, Foreigner Universe, and none of her Fantasy. Much from Kim Stanley Robinson, no matter if early or recently. Most memorable though, 'The Years of Rice and Salt'. Probably almost anything (Post-)Cyberpunkish from anyone. Steam- or Dieselpunk? Err no, thx. Some stuff from Stephen Baxter and Gregory Benford. Rameez Naam's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nexus_Trilogy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nexus_Trilogy All of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Suarez_(author) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Suarez_(author) Much of Bruce Sterling, William Gibson, Neal Stephenson. Oryx and Crake and following from Margaret Atwood. Anything from Iain Banks. 'The Color of Distance' from Amy Thompson. Peter F. Hamiltons 'Greg Mandel Trilogy' and 'The Night's Dawn Trilogy', his later stuff didn't engage me that much. The Blade Runner sequels from K.W. Jeter. Some Philip K. Dick, there is too much of it!1!! Gateway and following from Frederik Pohl. Some of Poul Anderson, John Varley, Jerry Pournelle, Vernor Vinge (Deepness in the Sky, etc) And so much more...
- kcartlidge 5y ago> with the exception of the 'Mri Wars / Faded Sun Trilogy', 'Merovingen Nights', Morgaine Cycle, Foreigner Universe, and none of her Fantasy. Mostly agree, but I actually enjoyed the Chronicles of Morgaine.
- thorin 5y agoAlbert Camus, the stranger Earnest hemmingway, the old man and the sea Have read many times, I like short books!
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- f0e4c2f7 5y agoI love The Culture Novels by Iain M Banks. The first in the series is Consider Phlebas but I enjoy all of them. They are cheesy in spots but the quality of the universe that Banks builds over 9 books makes up for it. Sort of like a novel version of Star Trek. I wish I could read them again for the first time.
- weisnobody 5y agoMore science fiction than just fiction: * Spider series by W. Michael Gear * Forbidden Borders series by W. Michael Gear * The Change series (aka Emberverse) by S.M. Stirling (first 6) * The Girl with all the Gifts by M.R. Carey * Dream Park by Larry Niven and Stephen Barnes * In The Country of the Blind by Michael Flynn * Me by Thomas T. Thomas * A State of Disobedience by Tom Kratman * Merchant Princess series by Charles Stross * Daughter of the Empire series by Raymond E. Fiest and Janny Wurts * Ecolitan series by L.E. Modesitt Jr * Freehold by Michael Z. Williamson * The Game is Life series by Terry Schott * The Aeronaut's Windlass by Jum Butcher