h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Beware all the spinoff Dune books!

The original three are great, the rest get progressively worse and more derivative.

turvy (currently reading Ilium by Dan Simmonds)

Try Robert Lull Forward's _Dragon's Egg_ and _Starquake_ (in that order; it's a series). Forward's Rocheworld series is also good.

Charles Sheffield's _Cold As Ice_, _The Ganymede Club_, and _Dark as Day_ (another series) may also be worth your reading.

I think the best book I've read in the last six months was The Iron Council by China Mieville.His books certainly hang around in one's mind...

didn't make room, make room inspire Soylent green?

Yup.

Actually, I should have come back and posted a recommendation for Eoin Colfer's 'The Supernaturalist'. Written for teenagers, but absolutely marvellous nonetheless.

There was a contest once for the shortest "true sci-fi" story. I consider the winning story to be intelligent sci-fi...

The story was just six words long, and the content was the same as the title. It was called...

"The Sun rose in the West."

Man, whoever wrote that has been living inside my head for the last 15 years or so.
It so sounds like the most Zen Poem I ever wrote.

I won't put it up because it'd screw peoples heads up.

Jonny Maelstrom
If you liked cube and hypercube there is a prequal film called Cube : Zero.

It's frigging mental! i loved it.

oh and by the way, in your personal space your "add a discussion" button doesn't work for some reason
even though your logged in and it shows your login name it still says hello unidentified hitch hiker and asks you to login.

you might want someone to look into that for you.

it looks very suspect indeed. a less paranoid person might say it looks like an attempt to Phish for login details in fact.

but i'm not that paranoid.

but you still want to report it to whoever does techy things on the guide web space.
see the cut n paste as below:-

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello [name] I'm not [name]
Retrieve my details Sign out


Greetings unknown hiker


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1stly for those struggling to find books online i recommend a website called Abebooks. I found books here i hadn't read in over 20 years.

Right, I agree with:-

Footfall - Niven & Pournelle. This needs to be made into a movie in a majorly big way. the book is excellent. if you haven't read it. go get it. it's super brill. a bunch of aliens descended from kinda elephants decide to invade earth, drop a fricking meteor on the planet, they actually move the moon to another dimension! this is so mad, it's fantastic.

The Forever War - Joe Haldeman. I read this when I was 9! It made that much of an impression I spent the next 25 years of my life frantically trying find another copy! It kept me sane during my stint in the RAF. Also Joe actually answers his own emails and is a very nice, polite chap to speak (virtually) with. Another book that needs to be made into a film in a majorly big way. It would make everyone forget about Starship Troopers forever (I'd ask Robert Zemikis to direct with James Cameron, dreamworks or ILM to do effects, stan winston to do creatures)

Have Spacesuit, Will Travel - Heinlein. Another I read, aged 10. spent 24 yrs trying to find another copy. Was told NUMEROUS times the book didn't exist, had never been printed. Went mental thinking i'd imagined the whole book. Finally found one. This would also make a good movie for the whole retro feel of the book. A boy wins a spacesuit then gets kidnapped by an alien race about to invade earth, foils the invasion and then has to defend the right of the earth to exist in the galaxy.

Riverworld - Phillip Hose-Farmer. This bloke is totally off his flipping box, but his books are so good. A planet you go to after you die but when you die there you get re-incarnated further down this river that runs across the planet. Fictional and real life characters intermix. The book is brilliant. if you haven't read it, go get a copy.

The Bachman Books - Stephen King. Ok so it isn't SF but some of the stories in here are Brilliant, especially The Long Walk. You also get the original version of The Running Man (prior to Hollywood or king tampering with it) and this version kills the film stone dead.

Riverworld was also made into a movie or miniseries. That's how I came across it.

What did people think of The Algebraist by Iain Banks?

I am reading another Iain Banks at the moment and am currently in a cash crisis.The Algebraist will have to wait especially as there is a Peter Hamilton due out this month.


I've also got Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination to read as well.

Which Banksie book?

To begin with, I liked his description of life in a gas giant, but by the end I didn't feel it was "other" enough. The inhabitants seemed to have many of the same problems to solve as the inhabitants of other worlds and just solved them slightly differently because of the environment.

Overall I was left with a sense that it didn't really matter all that much. Yes, there was a "quest", but in the end, the outcome was a bit of a sideshow to the descriptions of different cultures. Whereas in, say, "Player of Games", the descriptions of different cultures (and, of course, the Culture) fit in with and add to the overall narrative.

Still enjoyed it, though. Much more than Excession.

Sorry, should have clarified that this was in response to the question about "The Algebraist".

"Which Banksie book?"


Feersum Endjinn..nice title eh?

Tuff reed thow with harf the chapters in fonetic spelin an the store goin lik a rasin tran.

turvy

Yeah but I've read several books like that.Remember Clockwork Orange?

Besides I'm a teacher and I regularly read stuff like that from the students.

Haven't read the previous posts but try anything by James Tiptree Jnr IF you can get hold of them

yes the Riverworld series was very thought provoking, surprised to know that it was made into a TV series. The Dying Earth series by Jack Vance, lets hope that it's never adapted to the silver screen, the printed page conveys far more than movies ever can. The Canticles of Leibowitz by Walter Miller, 'Tiger, Tiger by Alfred Bester absolutely blew me away when I first read it. And Brian Aldis back in the 60's wrote some really wonderfull stuff like Hothouse and The Drowned World.

A Feast for Crows is finally out (George R R Martin)

However for intelligent SF - try Pratchett's science of the discworld books - ingenious.