The Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Spy, and Superhero Genre

[kevindavis007]

I'm currently rereading Rendezvous with Rama and desperately hoping the can make a decent movie out of it.

The last good book that I read from Ben Bova was The Exiles Trilogy.


https://www.fantasticfiction.com/b/ben-bova/exiles-trilogy.htm


I'm hoping they make into a decent movie or miniseries.

[Cripplecreek]

The last good book that I read from Ben Bova was The Exiles Trilogy.


https://www.fantasticfiction.com/b/ben-bova/exiles-trilogy.htm


I'm hoping they make into a decent movie or miniseries.

The best sci fi writers seem to be from our past and its sad. I read a lot of freebie E-books and it seems that 90% of modern sci fi wanders off into metaphysical states of consciousness and energy BS. One that had real potential was "Space-Time Odyssey" by Michael Poulin. Unfortunately he takes great pride in his obvious hatred for Christianity and largely ruins and otherwise great fiction story.

https://www.foboko.com/ebook/15764/sci-fi-fantasy/space-time-odyssey

[kevindavis007]

The best sci fi writers seem to be from our past and its sad. I read a lot of freebie E-books and it seems that 90% of modern sci fi wanders off into metaphysical states of consciousness and energy BS. One that had real potential was "Space-Time Odyssey" by Michael Poulin. Unfortunately he takes great pride in his obvious hatred for Christianity and largely ruins and otherwise great fiction story.

https://www.foboko.com/ebook/15764/sci-fi-fantasy/space-time-odyssey

Also, don't read anything from Kim Stanley Robinson. His Mars trilogy was good until the Socialist crap showed up.

[RoosGirl]

The best sci fi writers seem to be from our past and its sad. I read a lot of freebie E-books and it seems that 90% of modern sci fi wanders off into metaphysical states of consciousness and energy BS. One that had real potential was "Space-Time Odyssey" by Michael Poulin. Unfortunately he takes great pride in his obvious hatred for Christianity and largely ruins and otherwise great fiction story.

https://www.foboko.com/ebook/15764/sci-fi-fantasy/space-time-odyssey

Try Hugh Howie.  I haven't read any of his true sci-fi/space stuff, but I have thoroughly enjoyed a couple of his more fantasy style novels like Wool and Sand

[Machiavelli]

These are my favorite SF books. They are listed in alphabetical order. As you can see, I'm stuck in the past:

Adventures in Time and Space (anthology)
Raymond J. Healy & J. Francis McComas, ed.

Animal Farm
George Orwell

Cat's Cradle
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Childhood's End
Arthur C. Clarke

City (collection of related short stories)
Clifford D. Simak

The Demolished Man
Alfred Bester

The Door into Summer
Robert A. Heinlein

The Dreaming Jewels (AKA: The Synthetic Man)
Theodore Sturgeon

Ender's Game
Orson Scott Card

Fahrenheit 451
Ray Bradbury

The Haunted Stars
Edmond Hamilton

Lucifer's Hammer
Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle

The Mote in God's Eye
Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle

Nineteen Eighty-Four
George Orwell

The Pocket Book of Science Fiction (anthology)
Donald A. Wollheim, ed.

The Power
Frank M. Robinson

Shadows in the Sun
Chad Oliver

Slan
A. E. van Vogt

The Stars, My Destination
Alfred Bester

The Third Level (short story collection)
Jack Finney

To Your Scattered Bodies Go
Philip José Farmer

The Twenty-Seventh Day
John Mantley

Way Station
Clifford D. Simak

The War of the Worlds
H. G. Welles

The Winds of Time
Chad Oliver

[Free Vulcan]

Problem with sci-fi writing is we now live in the age of sci-fi. There was a show a couple of years back called Almost Human, set around the year 2050 or so. Some of the plots were a little unnerving, because the stuff they were talking about is already out there technologically, even if crude, like 3D printing body parts. It's getting harder and harder to wow readers with new far off tech concepts because we are approaching so many of them now.

[kevindavis007]

Problem with sci-fi writing is we now live in the age of sci-fi. There was a show a couple of years back called Almost Human, set around the year 2050 or so. Some of the plots were a little unnerving, because the stuff they were talking about is already out there technologically, even if crude, like 3D printing body parts. It's getting harder and harder to wow readers with new far off tech concepts because we are approaching so many of them now.

When I watch Star Trek I kinda laugh at the show (especially the TOS) with most of the tech that has surpassed what we saw in Star Trek. Heck, I think we might have  Drive in 20 - 30 years. We are getting close to find a planet that is like ours. What is next in SciFi? 

[Cripplecreek]

Problem with sci-fi writing is we now live in the age of sci-fi. There was a show a couple of years back called Almost Human, set around the year 2050 or so. Some of the plots were a little unnerving, because the stuff they were talking about is already out there technologically, even if crude, like 3D printing body parts. It's getting harder and harder to wow readers with new far off tech concepts because we are approaching so many of them now.

A lot of us like near reality sci fi with at least foreseeable possibility and solid science. Warp drives and transporters are cool but for now they remain in the realm of magic. Its one of the reasons I like "The Expanse". It takes place some 250 to 300 years in the future where mankind has spread across the solar system, A generation ship is under construction, and gravity is simulated by spin or thrust.

[bigheadfred]

I have always enjoyed Alan Dean Foster.

[kevindavis007]

A lot of us like near reality sci fi with at least foreseeable possibility and solid science. Warp drives and transporters are cool but for now they remain in the realm of magic. Its one of the reasons I like "The Expanse". It takes place some 250 to 300 years in the future where mankind has spread across the solar system, A generation ship is under construction, and gravity is simulated by spin or thrust.

I like near real SciFi as well. That is why I like The Expanse as well. Near realism SciFi. To be honest I don't want the transporter. I'm like McCoy.  I don't want my atoms scattered.  But I have a gut feeling Warp Drive is closer than we think.

[Free Vulcan]

A lot of us like near reality sci fi with at least foreseeable possibility and solid science. Warp drives and transporters are cool but for now they remain in the realm of magic. Its one of the reasons I like "The Expanse". It takes place some 250 to 300 years in the future where mankind has spread across the solar system, A generation ship is under construction, and gravity is simulated by spin or thrust.

CC - who carries The Expanse online? Really interested in watching that.

[Free Vulcan]

I like near real SciFi as well. That is why I like The Expanse as well. Near realism SciFi. To be honest I don't want the transporter. I'm like McCoy.  I don't want my atoms scattered.  But I have a gut feeling Warp Drive is closer than we think.

I think some FTL may well be possible in the next 50 years. Transporter more unlikely unless we find some slick tricks to matter-energy-matter conversion that can be done without outputting the equivalent power of a star.

Teleporting however, maybe a whole different ballgame, if we find an inroad to quantum entanglement.

[Sanguine]

CC - who carries The Expanse online? Really interested in watching that.

I watched it on Amazon.

[kevindavis007]

CC - who carries The Expanse online? Really interested in watching that.

If you have Amazon Prime it is free.

[LateForLunch]

When I watch Star Trek I kinda laugh at the show (especially the TOS) with most of the tech that has surpassed what we saw in Star Trek. Heck, I think we might have  Drive in 20 - 30 years. We are getting close to find a planet that is like ours. What is next in SciFi?

Not so fast. There will be no untethered, fast, strong, humanoid robots unless a high-voltage battery with exponentially more storage than any battery existing today, is invented.  Pack too much power into a small place and it becomes very unstable (melts, catches fire, explodes or all three).

 Faster-Than-Light drive is what is necessary to get outside the solar system in any shape to do anything when you arrive or any chance of coming back to where you started. That is (with all due respect, and that is great) pure fiction, not science. We have rockets and rudimentary ion-propulsion but nothing even close in theoretical basis for thinking that anything FTL is within the current horizon.

Author (and retired engineer) Gene Wolfe hypothesized that possibly ordinary wood would be an ideal material with which to build an FTL ship - by putting huge light-sails on it with spars miles high bristling like a porcupine.  Get back and forth to slower moving bodies using tenders / shuttles (just like conventional sailing vessels) but keep the FTL ship moving by inertia at the speed of light - where it would be virtually invisible. Our solar system might be swarming with FTL ships but they could be too small to see telescopically from Earth and have no heat signature (burning no fuel).

Given enough time to gather momentum, a massive ship able to catch the mild-but-steady pressure of light against its sails might eventually acquire relativistic speeds. Observed from a distance traveling close to the the speed of light, due to relativity the vessel would spread out physically and appear like a wave front possibly curved or concave like a crescent viewed from the side( just like solid particles do in particle accelerators as they approach "C"), distorting the background light slightly as it moved across the sky, but not having any observable solidity through a telescope or the naked eye.

From Earth telescopes any such distortion in the background would be thought to be air turbulence or transitory noise in the data-stream, and ignored.

Some worries are approaching however. One of those is the potential for the occurance of a Technological Singularity- in which machine intellect (not necessarily intelligent in a positive sense) might accellerate so dramatically fast, that technology would surge ahead with unfathomable speed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

[Cripplecreek]

I like near real SciFi as well. That is why I like The Expanse as well. Near realism SciFi. To be honest I don't want the transporter. I'm like McCoy.  I don't want my atoms scattered.  But I have a gut feeling Warp Drive is closer than we think.

White has made some inroads on the warping of space and the EM drive and he is the Advanced Propulsion Team Lead for the NASA Engineering Directorate (not a crackpot)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_G._White

[sneakypete]

If you have Amazon Prime it is free.

@kevindavis @Free Vulcan

Thanks,guys. Just checked it out,and have it bookmarked for future viewing. Right now I am binge-watching 24. I am on season 4 now,but it only started to get interesting in Season 3.  Too much bad writing,and too much ignorance. Seemed like in the first season,Jack's smoking hot daughter can't walk to school without getting kidnapped 3 times before dark,and never seems to break a nail,get her clothes dirty,or even be traumatized.

And don't get me started on the piss-poor tactics,weapons handling,and unrealistic gun fights,where that idiot Jack charges guys hiding behind things while shooting at him with automatic rifles,and that retard is firing two handguns at them while running at them,and they get hit and he doesn't.

NONE of which is the fault of that smoking hot blonde babe,or even the actor that plays her father. The actors are all first-rate actors,with the possible exception of Sutherland,who sometimes approaches "acceptable". It's the freaking writers,and the retards that evidently posted help-wanted ads in the backs of comic books to come up with advisers.

Then there is the top secret classified tactical operations center,which seems about as secret and restrictive as a Wal-Mart. People who no security clearances at all or any other valid reason to be there seem to just wander in and out at will. I keep waiting to see the Domino's guy walk through the door to deliver pizza and give them advise on what to do after scanning the screens.

I just kept telling myself "This HAS to get better or so many people wouldn't have watched it for so many years". Now it is starting to look a little better.

My best GUESS is when it first aired there wasn't so much really good competition for viewers,but as the years passed and the competition got a LOT tougher,they were forced to get better to survive. Whoever hired the writers and tech advisors for the first couple of years needs to be dragged outside and severely beaten,though.

BTW,don't claim a discussion about 24 is off-topic on a Sci-Fi thread. The first couple of years makes the Star Trek tv shows of the 70's look like documentaries by comparision.

[sneakypete]

Some worries are approaching however. One of those is the potential for the occurance of a Technological Singularity- in which machine intellect (not necessarily intelligent in a positive sense) might accellerate so dramatically fast, that technology would surge ahead with unfathomable speed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

@LateForLunch

I am no scientist,although I have read several books with that word on the front page,but it seems to be that is ALWAYS the case with new technology. Or it always seems to be the case with the first generation to experience a new technology,anyway. At one time the law required anytime wunnadem fancy "auto mobiles" was driven down the street there had to be some walking in front of it and ringing a bell to warn people.

Hell,there are STILL people today who really and truly believe all the space shots and trips to the moon were staged events that didn't really happen. Some of them are even walking around amongst us,free as birds.

[GtHawk]

I have always enjoyed Alan Dean Foster.

One of the most prolific writers out there, I also find myself cycling back through Assimov and Zelazny.

[Joe Wooten]

These are my favorite SF books. They are listed in alphabetical order. As you can see, I'm stuck in the past:

Adventures in Time and Space (anthology)
Raymond J. Healy & J. Francis McComas, ed.

Animal Farm
George Orwell

Cat's Cradle
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Childhood's End
Arthur C. Clarke

City (collection of related short stories)
Clifford D. Simak

The Demolished Man
Alfred Bester

The Door into Summer
Robert A. Heinlein

The Dreaming Jewels (AKA: The Synthetic Man)
Theodore Sturgeon

Ender's Game
Orson Scott Card

Fahrenheit 451
Ray Bradbury

The Haunted Stars
Edmond Hamilton

Lucifer's Hammer
Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle

The Mote in God's Eye
Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle

Nineteen Eighty-Four
George Orwell

The Pocket Book of Science Fiction (anthology)
Donald A. Wollheim, ed.

The Power
Frank M. Robinson

Shadows in the Sun
Chad Oliver

Slan
A. E. van Vogt

The Stars, My Destination
Alfred Bester

The Third Level (short story collection)
Jack Finney

To Your Scattered Bodies Go
Philip José Farmer

The Twenty-Seventh Day
John Mantley

Way Station
Clifford D. Simak

The War of the Worlds
H. G. Welles

The Winds of Time
Chad Oliver

Add:
Tau Zero
A Circus of Hells
A Stone in Heaven
The High Crusade
Poul Anderson

Starship Troopers
Robert Heinlein

Ringworld
Larry Niven

[Polly Ticks]

Problem with sci-fi writing is we now live in the age of sci-fi. There was a show a couple of years back called Almost Human, set around the year 2050 or so. Some of the plots were a little unnerving, because the stuff they were talking about is already out there technologically, even if crude, like 3D printing body parts. It's getting harder and harder to wow readers with new far off tech concepts because we are approaching so many of them now.

I hardly ever watch TV anymore -- other than baseball, of course -- but that's one of the few shows I actually did watch in the past couple of years. I quite liked it. It's a shame it got canceled so quickly.

[Free Vulcan]

I hardly ever watch TV anymore -- other than baseball, of course -- but that's one of the few shows I actually did watch in the past couple of years. I quite liked it. It's a shame it got canceled so quickly.

They barely gave it a chance. The writing and plots were good, it should have at least gotten a second season.

[LateForLunch]

These are my favorite SF books. They are listed in alphabetical order. As you can see, I'm stuck in the past:

Adventures in Time and Space (anthology)
Raymond J. Healy & J. Francis McComas, ed.

Animal Farm
George Orwell

Cat's Cradle
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Childhood's End
Arthur C. Clarke

City (collection of related short stories)
Clifford D. Simak

The Demolished Man
Alfred Bester

The Door into Summer
Robert A. Heinlein

The Dreaming Jewels (AKA: The Synthetic Man)
Theodore Sturgeon

Ender's Game
Orson Scott Card

Fahrenheit 451
Ray Bradbury

The Haunted Stars
Edmond Hamilton

Lucifer's Hammer
Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle

The Mote in God's Eye
Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle

Nineteen Eighty-Four
George Orwell

The Pocket Book of Science Fiction (anthology)
Donald A. Wollheim, ed.

The Power
Frank M. Robinson

Shadows in the Sun
Chad Oliver

Slan
A. E. van Vogt

The Stars, My Destination
Alfred Bester

The Third Level (short story collection)
Jack Finney

To Your Scattered Bodies Go
Philip José Farmer

The Twenty-Seventh Day
John Mantley

Way Station
Clifford D. Simak

The War of the Worlds
H. G. Welles

The Winds of Time
Chad Oliver

My goodness this is difficult. Tastes vary and people's personal circumstances often alter the relative significance dramatically. One book that is experienced as life-changing for one person leaves another phlegmatic and meh.

That being said, it's difficult to imagine any list of great science fiction / fantasy books which does not include at least these:

The Silmarillion
JRR Tolkien

(1)The Fountains of Paradise (2) Rendezvous With Rama
Arthur C. Clark

The Weapons Shop (of Isher)
AE Von Vogt

(1) Green Hills of Earth (anthology), (2) Stranger in a Strange Land 
Robert Heinlein

Tuf Voyaging
George RR Martin

(1) The Left Hand of Darkness, (2) A Wizard of Earthsea(trilogy), (3) Four Ways to Forgiveness, (4)The Word for World is "Forest" 
Ursula K. LeGuin,

The Space Trilogy (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, That Hideous Strength)
C.S. Lewis

The Severian Series (Shadow of the Torturer, Sword of the Lictor, The Claw of the Conciliator, The Citadel of the Autarch, Urth of the New Sun) plus The Other Dead Man (short story), The Island of Dr. Death (short story).
Gene Wolfe

(1) A Specter is Haunting Texas, (2) Ill Met at Lankhmar
Fritz Leiber

(1) The Sirens of Titan, (2) God Bless You Mr. Rosewater (3) Timescape
Kurt Vonnegut

A Canticle for Leibowitz 
Henry Miller

A Voyage to Arcturus
David Lindsay

(1) V.A.L.I.S., (2) Ubik, (3) Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (3) The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
Philip K. Dick (aka Horselover Fat)

The Martian Chronicles
Ray Bradbury

The Stainless Steel Rat
Jack Williamson

(1) Neuromancer (2) Virtual Light (3) Idoru (4) Pattern Recognition
William Gibson

The Gods Themselves
Isaac Azimov

(1) Dune (2a) Destination:Void (2b)The Jesus Incident (2c)The Lazarus Effect (2d)The Ascension Factor (3) The God Makers
Frank Herbert

[Machiavelli]

The 27th Day

I've always enjoyed this 75 minute 1957 Cold War era film by John Mantley from his 1956 novel. I saw it in the theater when it was first released and subsequently read the novel. Arnold Moss, who portrays The Alien, is also known for portraying Anton Karidian / Kodos the Executioner in the Star Trek:TOS episode, "The Conscience of the King." Renowned voice actor Paul Frees makes a rare onscreen appearance as Ward Mason, the newscaster.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKjAkZqQeDg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKjAkZqQeDg

[Smokin Joe]

Thanks, @Machiavelli , that was vintage fun. I did note a plot flaw, but pretty good overall.