Posleen and things similar...

[DrMckay]

If you're only planning to read Science Fiction books, you might be missing some really great stuff, so here's a few off-the-wall suggestions. Take them as you will

You already mentioned Dune, which is great, but I'd avoid the stuff written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. After their "House" trilogy, it gets really crappy.

Hitchiker's by Adams is also a good read



If you have an interest in historical/alt-hist sci-fi and enjoy engineering as well as character development, I'd suggest the 1632 Series by Eric Flint and various other authors, in which a West Virginia mining town of around 5000 people is transported from the year 2000 to 1600's Germany, and must survive in the middle of a brutal war.

Another good choice that is purely Sci-Fi is Joe Halderman's "Forever War," which is a meditation on the alienating effects of fighting an interstellar war as an infantryman and going back to a home that constantly changes. He wrote it in response to his Vietnam experience.

the Temeraire Books, by Naomi Novik. The premise: Dragons exist as a legitimate species. No magic, no wizards, just dragons, and a very different sort of Napoleonic Wars are being fought on land, sea...and air. Written in period language, may be a bit tricky to get through.

Terry Pratchett's Discworld Series (particularly the Watch books) Despite it being a sort of Fantasy, I would also recommend to you. They are smart, funny and heartfelt. Night Watch in particular really got me.

The Vorkosigan Saga, By Lois McMaster Bujold: A science fiction series following a stunted brittle boned young man looked on with suspicion by a planetary culture that despises mutations, who must outwit his enemies at every turn.


The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, by Michael Chabon, like all of his books, defies conventional Genre classification. Basically, it's a novel, about two young men in New York City on the eve of WWII who create a (fictional) comic book Character, called the Escapist. It delves into what kind of person would need to create these heroes, how society reacted to them, and so much more.

The Flashman Papers, by George MacDonald Fraser: a fake set of memoirs of a Victorian hero so well-written and researched that American magazines thought they were authentically rediscovered when they were first published. They follow the cowardly lecher Harry Paget Flashman on virtually every major campaign undertaken by the British Empire in the mid 19th century as Flashy attempts to keep his (Vastly undeserved) reputation intact while at the same time trying not to get killed. Funny, interesting, politically incorrect and a good read all around.

Anyway, hope these help, and good luck with the reading.

[gigabytelord]

You already mentioned Dune, which is great, but I'd avoid the stuff written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. After their "House" trilogy, it gets really crappy.

Yes, in fact I just ordered all three of the first books off of amazon, and roger on the latter bit.

Hitchiker's by Adams is also a good read

I keep hearing that, I guess the reason why I haven't read them yet is because the idea behind Hitchhiker's Guide just seems silly to me, maybe I'm letting the movies color my expectations to much.

The rest of the books you talked about, all sound very interesting, I'll definitely take a look at them.

[PainRack]

If its military science fiction you want, again, Starship Troopers gets the endorsement. You might also like Ender game, but don't follow the rest of the series.

The Dorsai series....... might also provide some light entertainment, but only if you really have absolutely nothing to do.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childe_Cycle


Otherwise, the Posleen series is just another continuation of the rightwing conservative movement that bashes the liberal movement while introducing large amount of explosion and heroic Lone Hero anti-establiashment rar! I don't know why I loved the old WWIII series, but I must admit, the subsequent government vs militia series was funny as a sorta parody. Lol. And if you switch off your brain entirely, Newt Gingrich novels along this lines can be popcorn fare. Oh no! Manhatten project is threatened because the scientist and guards have their guns locked in the armory. Its locked up and secured in the armoury, what do we do?
Don't worry. Sheriff Alvin York and the free gun owners of this desolate town have guns! And will step in to save the day! Yeehah!

(Someone should remind Newt that York was a colonel during WW2, arthritic, overweight, diabetic, and spent the war going around doing bond drives. Not to mention, he spent the inter-war years epousing government aid for increased education in his state.)

To be honest, there is this very good novel, which I can't remember the titel of. Something 2020 IIRC. Its protrays a world where a plague and a resurgent, militant Japan(which tells you this series was written in the late 80s) sent American influence worldwide reeling. Its about airpower, and opens up with the protagonist apache squadron being surprised by a squadron of Japanese helos with lasers being torn apart in Africia. The novel then follows up with essentially America getting back on its feet, recovering from the plague and re-extending its influence, climaxing in a war where Japanese sponsered muslim seperatists/Arab powers invaded Russia but got over-extended, leaving the oppurtinity for a new American fighter bomber equipped with gauss rifles to exploit. Reread it 6 years back and it was still quite good, for a mil science fiction series set in our timeline.

[Shroom Man 777]

God. I might as well just FedEx him a casket filled with Bart Blade's magnum opuses, complete with audiobooks by Uraniun.

Either that or, not wanting to give a dime to ole Bartholomew, just kill myself and instruct the mortician to carve military bullshit on the cold dead skin of my body, and then mail the casket with me inside it to him.

[Simon_Jester]

PainRack, please don't encourage him- we want to recommend good stuff, a decent story is better popcorn fare than random gibberish by Newt the Angry Attack Muffin.

Shroom, you do not have to spend any dimes.

However, many of the things being recommended are better than Stuart's crap.

[PainRack]

PainRack, please don't encourage him- we want to recommend good stuff, a decent story is better popcorn fare than random gibberish by Newt the Angry Attack Muffin.

Shroom, you do not have to spend any dimes.

However, many of the things being recommended are better than Stuart's crap.

Reading is for pleasure.

And the truth is, some of newt stuff are entertaining, they just shouldn't be looked at seriously.

I can't believe I forgot this though. The Lost Fleet series by John Henry. It has a decent plot, climax nicely and even has decent character building/exposition. Some may be turned off by the God-King mythos along with the author/protagonist beliefs, where his morality just happens to have actual military returns when the Syndic worlds collapse. But the way these are structured doesn't detract from the story, are believable and turn out quite well as the author does his best to immerse you in the setting and perspective of Geary.

Shep endorsement of this means that there's the requisite booms to entertain, and the pacing between battles, political intrigue and stuff turns out quite nicely.. although I highly recommend that one starts the series from the begining. With that, my frustration at the idiocy of the commanders was that shared by the protagonist geary, the evolution of geary transition to the saviour of the Alliance shouldn't turn off people.

[madd0ct0r]

another endorsement for dune, and I did enjoy hyperion.

in both cases, the first book is huge and the best.

Also echo flashman and the Watch series from discworld. Not read the other's DrMCkay suggested, but based on his other picks I might.

Also, more of the usual suspects - do androids dream of electric sheep? ect
(personally, i thought bladerunner the movie was better. It's that kind of scifi where the ideas are better then the characters or maybe i wasn't old enough to appreciate it.)

You know what can be really good? Short story anthologies.
Some of the best sci-fi I've ever read that have stayed with me a long time were in those. And a single short story is far less of a commitment then Dune or a 40k novel.

[Stark]

That's a good idea; its way easier to find a good short story than a good novel.

[gigabytelord]

I just googled Hyperion, from what I read, it sounds like an interesting universe to explore, might go after it next.
I will receive the first three Dune books from amazon on the 9th, so I'll absorb them first, then go on to Hyperion or Starship Troopers since both of these have apparently received very good reviews from all who have mentioned them.

Also I may be updating my other thread with more info, and yet another question sometime tonight or tomorrow.

[dworkin]

I suggest 'War of the Worlds', look it's even got "War" in the title.

Or 'The Uplift War', see, "War" again.

Then there's 'Use of Weapons', look at the title, bound to be battles galore.

[MKSheppard]

The point of this thread is to build a list of books in which earth or other fictional worlds are placed in difficult circumstances, ie. planetary invasion, or other world changing events, and actually have a chance of being victorious.

Try my list of military SF?

link

I need to update it a little, haven't done that since March 2011.

[Coalition]

If you want one where humanity has a chance, you wouldn't enjoy the War against the Chtorr, by David Gerrold. Earth is being xenoformed by an alien ecology very effectively (first waves of plagues took out 3/4 of humanity). In the book, they estimate a worse-case scenario of losing in 10 years (aka humanity is extinct). Best case scenario is winning in 300 years. Oh, and the various nations aren't working together either.

The other fun is they haven't met the aliens doing the invasion yet, just their ecology.

At least it has humor, courtesy of Solomon Short, along with the main character's limericks. Example below:
There was a young lady named Suzy,
Who everyone thought was a floozy.
She liked boy scout troops
and Shriners, in groups;
"What the hell?" She replied. "I'm not choosy."

[jollyreaper]

I think a lot of military SF falls into right wing cliches of rah-rah kill those who are different, might makes right, America is awesomez. The Posleen novels fall right into that category. The alien race that created the Posleen and the whole intergalactic mess are space liberals. Humans are awsomez and super kewl and the only weakness our species has is when liberals get put in charge of something and ruin everything.

I liked Starship Troopers and anyone who says it's a love letter to fascism isn't entirely getting the point.

As far as military fiction goes, I think I like Gates of Fire by Stephen Pressfield more than most of the conventional or scifi military books I've encountered. For starters, it's a really good story and well-told. If 300 was the Hollywood rah-rah-splosions approach to Thermopylae, Gates of Fire feels deeper, more epic, a better read.

Now there's a whole host of valid discussion about how accurate the book is, whether it gave the Spartans too much of a pass, whether it was too idealized and overlooked the hypocrisy of what Sparta was really like. Were they exemplifying manly virtues and an admirable respect for self-determination or were they a group of murderous frat boys who lorded their supremacy over anyone unfortunate enough to meet them? Complex questions.

David Drake is extremely popular and specializes in military SF.

[jollyreaper]

I can't believe I forgot this though. The Lost Fleet series by John Henry. It has a decent plot, climax nicely and even has decent character building/exposition. Some may be turned off by the God-King mythos along with the author/protagonist beliefs, where his morality just happens to have actual military returns when the Syndic worlds collapse. But the way these are structured doesn't detract from the story, are believable and turn out quite well as the author does his best to immerse you in the setting and perspective of Geary.

I'd have to countermand this recommendation.

The impression from the first novel is that we'd have a decent space battle story. Some world-building mainly as a pretext for discussing interesting tactical problems concerning space combat.

No.

It's really, really awful, dire stuff. Characterization is terrible, tactics awful, and by the final novels not even interesting from the point of morbid curiosity.

Now as a counter-suggestion to this, there's a self-published author you can find on Amazon. His website is: http://www.thehumanreach.net/

He's very small-time, an ascended geek, frequenter of blogs and message boards. To describe the setting in a nutshell, think modern world projected out a few hundred years. The politics and calculations feel straight out of early Tom Clancy before his America=superman phase. Human nations go to the stars, resurgent nationalism sees nation-states founding extra-solar colonies. China is top dog, the USA is a mid-tier power, nationalism is the new big thing. Due to political machinations beyond the immediate understanding of our protagonists, the first interstellar war brews up.

Ships and tactics are kept as realistic as possible. Combat is at long range, ships require radiators, orbital mechanics are kept in mind. While there would certainly be differences between what he wrote and a real space war, he's trying to get it right. FTL is via wormholes, not warp drives. No artificial gravity, no phasers, inverse tachyon pulses, etc. While space combat seems like an unlikely thing, he convinces you it could happen and how it would go down.

[jollyreaper]

I can't believe I forgot this though. The Lost Fleet series by John Henry. It has a decent plot, climax nicely and even has decent character building/exposition. Some may be turned off by the God-King mythos along with the author/protagonist beliefs, where his morality just happens to have actual military returns when the Syndic worlds collapse. But the way these are structured doesn't detract from the story, are believable and turn out quite well as the author does his best to immerse you in the setting and perspective of Geary.

I'd have to countermand this recommendation.

The impression from the first novel is that we'd have a decent space battle story. Some world-building mainly as a pretext for discussing interesting tactical problems concerning space combat.

No.

It's really, really awful, dire stuff. Characterization is terrible, tactics awful, and by the final novels not even interesting from the point of morbid curiosity.

Now as a counter-suggestion to this, there's a self-published author you can find on Amazon. His website is: http://www.thehumanreach.net/

He's very small-time, an ascended geek, frequenter of blogs and message boards. To describe the setting in a nutshell, think modern world projected out a few hundred years. The politics and calculations feel straight out of early Tom Clancy before his America=superman phase. Human nations go to the stars, resurgent nationalism sees nation-states founding extra-solar colonies. China is top dog, the USA is a mid-tier power, nationalism is the new big thing. Due to political machinations beyond the immediate understanding of our protagonists, the first interstellar war brews up.

Ships and tactics are kept as realistic as possible. Combat is at long range, ships require radiators, orbital mechanics are kept in mind. While there would certainly be differences between what he wrote and a real space war, he's trying to get it right. FTL is via wormholes, not warp drives. No artificial gravity, no phasers, inverse tachyon pulses, etc. While space combat seems like an unlikely thing, he convinces you it could happen and how it would go down.

[jollyreaper]

I just googled Hyperion, from what I read, it sounds like an interesting universe to explore, might go after it next.
I will receive the first three Dune books from amazon on the 9th, so I'll absorb them first, then go on to Hyperion or Starship Troopers since both of these have apparently received very good reviews from all who have mentioned them.

Also I may be updating my other thread with more info, and yet another question sometime tonight or tomorrow.

Just remember Dune is a Greek tragedy. The first book is everyone's favorite because the protagonist reaches his peak. The second two books detail his fall. People tend to hate them because of that but all three were conceived as one story. The sequels from God Emperor on were tacked onto the original concept and are the weaker for it.

[gigabytelord]

I suggest 'War of the Worlds', look it's even got "War" in the title.
Or 'The Uplift War', see, "War" again.
Then there's 'Use of Weapons', look at the title, bound to be battles galore.

Not sure if sarcasm... any ways, I'm looking for good stories, hence the reason behind reading Dune, not to see how many ways a human can dissect an alien with various weapons.

Just remember Dune is a Greek tragedy. The first book is everyone's favorite because the protagonist reaches his peak. The second two books detail his fall. People tend to hate them because of that but all three were conceived as one story. The sequels from God Emperor on were tacked onto the original concept and are the weaker for it.

I'm aware, wiki has a decent description of the plot line, I'm mainly reading it for the inspiration, and ideas, I also intend to pick up the Borne series and re-watch the movies as well.

[jollyreaper]

The thing that impresses me with Dune is how Herbert kept it from being dated. While I'm not woo-woo about the coming Singularity, I do think it's incredibly difficult to write realistic scifi given our advances in various fields of technology. Compare Kirk's communicator to the iphone even as America has no native manned launch capability anymore. Herbert took computers out of the mix with the Butlerian Jihad. Why? Because it's otherwise hard to explain why you aren't stuck with the Culture universe where AI's are godlike and humans are struggling for relevance. To prevent that kind of situation you'd have to make arguments about the capabilities of AI. "Thou shalt not make a computer in the likeness of a human mind." Over and done with. Humans remain the center of the story and the how's and why's of the tech remains off-stage so you don't have jarring "wait a sec!" moments.

If you want examples of how plausibly weird the future can be, Charlie Stross has done a couple of great novels. Accelerando is a collection of short stories turned into a novel that follows a family through the Singularity. Starts a decade or so in the future and continues through to the post-human era. There's also the duology Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise. Of particular note in Singularity Sky is a group of imperialists whose minds are squarely stuck in the 19th century who are trying to build an interstellar empire. They're pretty much the North Korea of space, taking a ridiculous idea to extremes because nobody can tell them no. They learn their lesson the hard way.

[MKSheppard]

If you want one where humanity has a chance, you wouldn't enjoy the War against the Chtorr, by David Gerrold. Earth is being xenoformed by an alien ecology very effectively (first waves of plagues took out 3/4 of humanity). In the book, they estimate a worse-case scenario of losing in 10 years (aka humanity is extinct). Best case scenario is winning in 300 years. Oh, and the various nations aren't working together either.

I'd argue against that one. It went into some woo woo bullshit in the later books; about how humanity can't defeat the Chtorr, because we're too weak or some shit. Nevermind that you don't need to be mentally pure or have a strong mind to push a button to drop napalm from a B-52 on a suspected Chtorr hive, instead of sending a few guys with flamethrowers to handle it all.

[MKSheppard]

I can't believe I forgot this though. The Lost Fleet series by John Henry. It has a decent plot, climax nicely and even has decent character building/exposition.

I like Lost Fleet, but it suffers from bloat. He spent six books on his first arc when he could have condensed it down to three; and it looks like he's off to the same start with his new arc.

I really liked the first novel or two. You had a lot of stuff going down in those, similar to how you had a lot of stuff going on in "The Walking Dead's" first season. But like TWD, things just....kept......getting......pushed........out in later seasons/books.

Same thing also inflicts Stephen L. Kent's Clone series. The first book: The Clone Republic is fucking awesome. It's one that I'd say has a good shot at being a classic.

But by book six or seven, he's completely shot his bolt and just run the characters into the ground.

[MKSheppard]

He's very small-time, an ascended geek, frequenter of blogs and message boards. To describe the setting in a nutshell, think modern world projected out a few hundred years. The politics and calculations feel straight out of early Tom Clancy before his America=superman phase. Human nations go to the stars, resurgent nationalism sees nation-states founding extra-solar colonies. China is top dog, the USA is a mid-tier power, nationalism is the new big thing. Due to political machinations beyond the immediate understanding of our protagonists, the first interstellar war brews up.

Ships and tactics are kept as realistic as possible. Combat is at long range, ships require radiators, orbital mechanics are kept in mind. While there would certainly be differences between what he wrote and a real space war, he's trying to get it right. FTL is via wormholes, not warp drives. No artificial gravity, no phasers, inverse tachyon pulses, etc. While space combat seems like an unlikely thing, he convinces you it could happen and how it would go down.

*curses*

someone stole my ideas!

Seriously, I like this universe just from your description. Like my comment from above, I've been thinking on and off about a universe like this for the last couple of years.

[MKSheppard]

In the book, they estimate a worse-case scenario of losing in 10 years (aka humanity is extinct). Best case scenario is winning in 300 years. Oh, and the various nations aren't working together either.

Actually, in book two; the US/Canada/Mexico are building a MOON COLONY, and two L-5 Stations; along with such things as preliminary planning/investment beginning on a SPACE ELEVATOR.

If we can afford that, we can afford endless flights of C-5 Galaxies dropping napalm onto worm infestations wherever they're found.

But it's in book three that the really insane shit begins, as the author wastes virtually all the book on brainwashing and self justified crap called "The Mode", to enable humans to reach the "potential" required to fight the Chtorr.

This is a series that thinks that sending lone SPESHUL FORCES people into the woods with flamethrowers to defeat Chtorran worms is a viable military tactic.

[PainRack]

I can't believe I forgot this though. The Lost Fleet series by John Henry. It has a decent plot, climax nicely and even has decent character building/exposition.

I like Lost Fleet, but it suffers from bloat. He spent six books on his first arc when he could have condensed it down to three; and it looks like he's off to the same start with his new arc.

I really liked the first novel or two. You had a lot of stuff going down in those, similar to how you had a lot of stuff going on in "The Walking Dead's" first season. But like TWD, things just....kept......getting......pushed........out in later seasons/books.

Same thing also inflicts Stephen L. Kent's Clone series. The first book: The Clone Republic is fucking awesome. It's one that I'd say has a good shot at being a classic.

But by book six or seven, he's completely shot his bolt and just run the characters into the ground.

I agree about the bloat, its still a simple enjoyable series that beats out the rest of the stuff out there.

It's really, really awful, dire stuff. Characterization is terrible, tactics awful, and by the final novels not even interesting from the point of morbid curiosity.

It depends on what you mean by terrible characterisation.By the standards of mil science fiction, its relatively great. Geary evolution from shell-shocked to Admiral of the Fleet and acceptance of his duty is done quite subtly. Ditto to his opposition.

Its way superior to the like of Tom Kratman, Ringo or any of the current crop of authors out there.

lol. That's more of a condemnation of current mililtary science fiction but its how it is right now.

[TronPaul]

Cause Chicago is best coast.

If you're looking for some good modern sci-fi, check out Peter F. Hamilton. He has a two part series that I highly recommend: Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained. It poses some interesting questions on a future with pseudo-immortality, genocide and responsibility.

[phongn]

He's very small-time, an ascended geek, frequenter of blogs and message boards. To describe the setting in a nutshell, think modern world projected out a few hundred years. The politics and calculations feel straight out of early Tom Clancy before his America=superman phase. Human nations go to the stars, resurgent nationalism sees nation-states founding extra-solar colonies. China is top dog, the USA is a mid-tier power, nationalism is the new big thing. Due to political machinations beyond the immediate understanding of our protagonists, the first interstellar war brews up.

Seriously, I like this universe just from your description. Like my comment from above, I've been thinking on and off about a universe like this for the last couple of years.

The worldbuilding is somewhat interesting but the book is merely okay. Sure, it's mostly hard sci-fi with an okay projection of the future, but the characters are pretty flat and generic (protagonist and antagonist).