What are other SCi-Fi author in addition to Arthur C Clark and Isaac Asimov?

[legolas_w]

Hi,

I read all books by these two great author and I am looking to pick another author's book and read them in my spare time.

Do you know any other good SCI-FI author and book titles? Would you share it here.


Thanks.

[jrothwell97]

Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's The Mote in God's Eye is very good, as is Clarke and Stephen Baxter's Time Odyssey series.

Greg Bear's stuff isn't bad, too.

[McRat]

Phillip DlCK

Robert Heinlein(?)

Ray Bradbury

Roger Zelany

John Christopher (The White Mountains was what turned me onto Sci-Fi as a child)

[cbecker78]

Dean Koontz is one of my favorites, though he often gets dumped in the "horror" genre for reasons I don't understand. He's more of a sci-fi thriller type. And focuses on paranormal science fiction. He always makes for a good read. But his earlier stuff is the better Sci-fi work... of late, it's more human interest type stuff.

Micheal Crichton is another excellent sci-fi writter. His, like Kontz's work, is all ground-based (i.e., not in space) But he puts a lot more actual "Science" in his writting- to the extent that his fiction could almost be plausible realities in the near future. Sphere was his breakout imo, though the movie was horrible. Prey was very good. And Timeline is one of my favorites of his.

[McRat]

Holy smokes. D I CK is a restricted word? It's also a common name, slang for detective, and a famous cartoon character.

[RichardLinx]

Vernor Vinge and Walter Miller.

[Glenn nl]

Eric Nylund

[Странник]

Arkadii & Boris Strugatsky

[pastalavista]

Nick Sagan (Carl Sagan's son)
Dennis Danvers (obscure but excellent)
Piers Anthony
Terry Brooks
Terry Pratchett
L Ron Hubbard (Scientology..hah)
Spider Robinson
William Shatner (yes, Captain Kirk post-Star Trek)
George R. R. Martin

this list could be quite long...

[Philip Gray]

The Demon Prince series by Jack Vance were pretty good. The Amtrak series by Patrick Tilley was rather an interesting read. Then there are also Frank Herbet. E.E. Doc Smith and L. Ron Hubbard

[MindSz]

The Hyperion books by Dan Simmons, and the Hitchhiker books by Douglas Adams.

I'm also a fan of Terry Pratchett and the Discworld books.

[Dustin2128]

H.G. Wells and Jules Verne if you like early scifi; and most of their books are available legally for free online because they're so old. 20,000 leagues under the sea is an amazing scifi book even by today's standards!

[legolas_w]

Hi,

I mostly look for books around space travel and space. I will try to categorize the authors suggested here to find which ones do write space travel related books.

Thanks.

[saulgoode]

Frederick Pohl
James P. Hogan
Ben Bova
Orson Scott Card
Robert Silverberg

[samalex]

Most of the ones I'm posting have already been mentioned:
Nick Sagan and Carl Sagan
William Shatner
Orson Scott Card
Ann C. Crispin
J.M. Dillard
Diane Duane
Douglas Adams

[ve4cib]

A few of my favourite Sci-Fi authors (or at the very least authors who have a few Sci-Fi novels/stories in their bibliography), along with a novel or two they wrote:

- Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)
- John Scalzi (Old Man's War, Android's Dream)
- Jeff Somers (Electric Church, Digital Plague)
- Robert Heinlein (Starship Troopers, Orphans of the Sky)
- George RR Martin (Dying of the Light)
- Dan Abnett (Gaunt's Ghosts)
- William Gibson (Neuromancer, The Difference Engine)
- Cherie Priest (Boneshaker)
- Orson Scott Card (Ender's Game)
- Philip K D ick (Ubik, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep)
- Frank Herbert (Dune)

A few of those (The Difference Engine, and Boneshaker) are more steampunk than sci-fi, but whatever. Retro-futurism is cool.

[luceerose]

H.G. Wells and Jules Verne if you like early scifi; and most of their books are available legally for free online because they're so old. 20,000 leagues under the sea is an amazing scifi book even by today's standards!

+1

Exactly who I was gonna say, H.G. Wells & Jules Verne.

[alphaniner]

I know you're asking about authors, but one of my favorite Sci-Fi novels ever was "This Alien Shore" by C.S. Friedman.

[standingwave]

Must reads:

The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov
Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke
(I will assume you've already read those.)

The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester
Stand On Zanzibar by John Brunner
Dune by Frank Herbert
A Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter Miller
More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon
The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester
The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester

[PhilGil]

This should keep you busy for a while :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Award_for_Best_Novel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebula_Award_for_Best_Novel

For the type of Sci Fi the OP described, Larry Niven is the master. Start off with Ringworld or one of the other novels set in the Known Space Universe and you'll be hooked.

[alphaniner]

An up and coming author I'd recommend is JL Bryan (http://www.jlbryanbooks.com/home.html). His first book was a near-future dystopian novel, and can be downloaded in full from his website (licensed Creative Commons!). The first five chapters of another book, Helix - proper Sci-Fi - are available there as well.

[BuffaloX]

The GAP series by Stephen R. Donaldson is incredible IMO.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gap_Cycle

[legolas_w]

Thank you all for your replies and suggestions.

I am getting RingWorld as the next book to read. It appears to be something very nice.

Thanks again.

[DeadSuperHero]

Philip Jose Farmer. He's mostly known for his "Riverworld" series, but "World of Tiers", "Dayworld", "Jesus on Mars", and "Riders of the Purple Wage" are all absolutely excellent works. I highly recommend him.

[Astarroth]

One of my favorite is by H.Beam Piper - Space Vikings. His paratime stories are also very good. I reread Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen as least once a year.

[MedianMajik]

Here is a link (http://www.surfturk.com/endoftheworld/ihavenomouth.html) to read my favorite sci-fi short story by a man named Harlan Ellison

[libssd]

Lots of good suggestions, as I would expect in a forum like this.

I tend toward xeno-anthropological SF. Here are some more (unless I have somehow overlooked them in the postings) :

Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis (http://biology.kenyon.edu/slonc/books/butler1.html) trilogy. Totally weird biology/genetics.

Shawn Mullins' Souls in the Great Machine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Souls_in_the_Great_Machine). Human-powered computers, non-electric packet-switched networks. Fascinating speculations on a society without electricity.

Orson Scott Card's Ender (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ender's_Game_(series)) series. Ethical SF. Some space opera aspects, especially in the first book of the series, Ender's Game.

Ursula K Leguin's Left Hand of Darkness (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Left_Hand_of_Darkness).

[Sutekh849]

iain M banks - culture series
roger zelazny - amber series / all of his stuff is awesome (lord of light especially)
john wyndham - day of the triffids / the kraken wakes (my personal favs)
as said above niven's known space is very good.
stainless steel rat =)
michael moorcock - elric series - more science fantasy but still good
william gibsons 'the sprawl' and the bridge trilogies if your into cyberpunk
philip K **** - do androids dream of electric sheep?
can't think of many more, i'm too tired.

[apmcd47]

Three pages before anyone mentioned Harry Harrison! (Stainless Steel Rat, Deathworld trilogy, Wheelworld/To The Stars trilogy, Technicolor Time Machine) http://www.harryharrison.com/

Others I couldn't see:


Ursula K Le Guin
Anne McCaffrey
Clifford Simak
Peter F Hamilton


Andrew

[keifer]

There are a lot of really good authors listed here. I came up with list to post, but all but one have already been said.


I think Neal Stephenson also deserves mentioning. Some don't like his latter works, but the Baroque Cycle is easily the one of the best things I've read.

[an0dos]

+1 on Robert Heinlein.

You can also check out the baen free library (http://www.baen.com/library/). You can full copies of some contemporary sci-fi books there for free. Check out David Weber's books. They are fun to read.

[Firestem4]

Wow. I can't believe we got 4 pages in without anyone mentioning Greg Bear. A highly celebrated author; he wrote one of my favorite Sci-Fi books: Eon. I still haven't started the 2nd book in the series (Eternity) but if its anything like the first It'll be gripping.

My all time favorite sci-fi writer is Ray Bradbury (I love The Martian Chronicles).

A few others that I like: Robert Heinlein, Jack Campbell, Graham McNeill, Ben Counter, Douglas Adams, and Dan Abnett.

[Endomancer]

Another vote for Peter F Hamilton

http://www.peterfhamilton.co.uk/

[jrothwell97]

Wow. I can't believe we got 4 pages in without anyone mentioning Greg Bear. A highly celebrated author; he wrote one of my favorite Sci-Fi books: Eon. I still haven't started the 2nd book in the series (Eternity) but if its anything like the first It'll be gripping.

*cough (http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=9430570&postcount=2)*

Yeah, Bear's got some good stuff, but his characterisation has a tendency to be rather... lousy. He's not quite as bad as some of Arthur Clarke's later work, but he definitely concentrates more on scientific accuracy than dealing with inter-character relationships.

[gillza]

Asimov and Clark mostly wrote Hard SciFi so

http://www.hardsciencefiction.rogerdeforest.com/?mode=1

Look at Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space series :)

[sanderella]

Did anyone mention Brian Aldiss? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Aldiss

[Bachstelze]

Bradbury and Asimov are really all there is to it, IMHO. Maybe it's just me, but all the other sci-fi books I've read (not many, admittedly) feel like copypasta of either of them. Maybe I'm just not that interested in sci-fi anymore, though... Either way, I think it's a bit sad to limit oneself to a single genre of literature. I have a couple friends that also read only sci-fi, and I really think it's a shame, there's so many great things outside it...

[billmoseley]

Best ever? Kurt Vonnegut, hands down. I'd recommend Cat's Cradle to start and then Slaughterhouse 5.

[Firestem4]

*cough (http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=9430570&postcount=2)*

Yeah, Bear's got some good stuff, but his characterisation has a tendency to be rather... lousy. He's not quite as bad as some of Arthur Clarke's later work, but he definitely concentrates more on scientific accuracy than dealing with inter-character relationships.

Lol...Missed that one ):P

And I would agree that character development in his first story [that i read] is not the best, but I really enjoyed the book nonetheless. Scientific accuracy aside, what kept me drawn to the book was all of this very cool physics and science. (Self-proclaimed star trek fan here)

[ve4cib]

Stanislaw Lem is apparently pretty good, but I unfortunately can't read Czech (or did he write in Russian -- I honestly can't remember right now), and apparently most English translations of his novels are pretty bad.

EDIT: checked on Wikipedia. He was apparently Polish, so I was wrong both times.

[cascade9]

Tim Powers has a few really good books....a long way from 'hard' scifi though, more a stange combination of scifi, fantasy with elements of horror (and BTW, its not 'sword and elf' fantasy)

"The Anubis Gates" is a good place to start with him IMO.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Anubis_Gates

[NikoC]

Currently, I'm reading Acacia bij David Durham...
I'm on page 453 of the 600 and something and loved it so far...

[Groodles]

iain M banks - culture series

+1 for Iain M Banks.

(note he also writes under "Iain Banks" when it's none Sci-Fi topic, but still well written)

[Louisraritan]

The posters in this thread pretty much covered every known Sci Fi writer.

One favorite series of mine is "America 2040" by Evan Innes.

A cool sub genre of Sci fi is cyber punk and bio punk. Cyber Punk inspired films like The Matrix and Strange Days.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk

[Detonate]

Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land" is considered a classic. Read it and you will grok why.

[Странник]

I forgot to mention Sergei Lukyanenko and Dmitrii Gluhovsky

[ve4cib]

I can't believe I've forgotten to mention Donald Kingsbury's Psychohistorical Crisis (http://www.amazon.com/Psychohistorical-Crisis-Donald-Kingsbury/dp/0312861028)!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/20/Psychohistorical_Crisis_cover.jpg/200px-Psychohistorical_Crisis_cover.jpg

It basically picks up right after the end of Asimov's classic Foundation Trilogy (i.e. after the end of Second Foundation, completely ignoring that the abominations of Foundation and Earth, and Foundation's Edge ever happened. If you enjoyed Foundation you'd probably like Psychohistorical Crisis, since it's much more in-line with the original trilogy than Asimov's later books were.

(The novel also has some hilarious parts where they visit ancient Earth, which is now a tourist attraction. After several thousands of years history has been a bit muddled, with people believing that Bettie Boop was some ancient fertility idol, and that the Visigoth king Hitler's armies (who naturally wore tricorn hats, since those were the fashion of the time) invaded their neighbours while wearing the five-pointed star of the Norse god David to proclaim their superiority over their enemies. Historical reenactors of the far-future are a funny bunch....)

[rewyllys]

Hi,

I read all books by these two great author and I am looking to pick another author's book and read them in my spare time.

Do you know any other good SCI-FI author and book titles? Would you share it here.


Thanks.
For Hard SciFi, I think it's impossible to surpass Hal Clement's books.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_Clement

And a classic short novel in the hard scifi genre is "Nerves", by Lester Del Rey. When you read it, it's important to note that it was first published in 1942, well before the general public had ever heard of the idea of an atomic bomb. Viewed thus, "Nerves" is astoundingly accurate in its predictions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lester_Del_Rey

[alien878]

If you like Asimov, you might be interested in "the three B's": Greg Bear, Gregory Benford and David Brin. Although (IMHO) it was not their best works, they all wrote a Foundation book.

I'm actually a little surprised I haven't seen David Brin mentioned yet.

[Idaho Dan]

I liked Edgar Rice Burroughs and Harry Harrison.
Old stuff though.

[mick222]

Stanislaw Lem has not been mentioned Solaris is a brilliant book.
Also if you can find it "The Cyberiad" A collection of short stories mostly funny found a quote "How The World Was Saved

One day Trurl the constructor put together a machine that could create anything starting with n. When it was ready, he tried it out, ordering it to make needles, then nankeens and negligees, which it did, then nail the lot to narghiles filled with nepenthe and numerous other narcotics. The machine carried out his instructions to the letter. Still not completely sure of its ability, he had it produce, one after the other, nimbuses, noodles, nuclei, neutrons, naphtha, noses, nymphs, naiads, and natrium. 'This last it could not do, and Trurl, considerably irritated, demanded an explanation.

"Never heard of it," said the machine.Trurl's Machine

"What? But it's only sodium. You know, the metal, the element..."

"Sodium starts with an s, and I work only in n."

"But in Latin it's natrium."

"Look, old boy," said the machine, "if I could do everything starting with n in every possible language, I'd be a Machine That Could Do Everything in the Whole Alphabet, since any item you care to mention undoubtedly starts with n in one foreign language or another. It's not that easy. I can't go beyond what you programmed. So no sodium."

[mips]

Carl Sagan also wrote Contact (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_(novel)) which I preferred to the movie.