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the best science fiction books of all time?

chaosmachine

By chaosmachine
in General Banter

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bronchuseven Mentor

bronchuseven

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Dune is one of the best universe-building series, covering tens of thousands of years, not to mention the millions of years of history prior to the first novel.

 

That reminds me of another of my favourites - Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon. Written in 1930, it concerns the evolution of humans' succeeding 18 species of descendents over billions of years. Admittedly he gets the 20th century pretty wrong but it's a fascinating novel.

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Echolalia Experienced

Echolalia

Posted
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Dune is one of the best universe-building series, covering tens of thousands of years, not to mention the millions of years of history prior to the first novel.

 

That reminds me of another of my favourites - Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon. Written in 1930, it concerns the evolution of humans' succeeding 18 species of descendents over billions of years. Admittedly he gets the 20th century pretty wrong but it's a fascinating novel.

 

Stapledon is an alumni of University of Liverpool. Brilliant book, though it's been a while since I read Last and First Men. The last one I read by him was Sirius - animal psychology experiment in rural England. Though Flowers for Algernon is my favourite book on the anthropomorphic subject.

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Echolalia Experienced

Echolalia

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Lessing's Shikasta books were written in a similar fashion transcending time and laying it all out for you as observational philisophical fiction. Science-fiction is a very strict term for these writers though, as they offer so much more, Vonnegut's works got labelled sci-fi also in the same way.

 

My personal favourite is Stand on Zanzibar by Brunner. The Chad Mulligan quotes are so funny, each one is like finding a chinese fortune cookie in your daily life or consulting Japanese fortune sticks. He comes across as a spiritual hobo truth seeker. Defo recommended.

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chenGOD Grand Master

chenGOD

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I'll add/second Inverted World by Christopher Priest.

 

 

Bump because Christmas.

 

Anyone reading/read Seveneves? I keep falling asleep listening to the first chapter (same thing happened with Anathem, eventually I got into it and it was great).

I quit Seveneves pretty early on. I also really enjoyed Anathem, but I think I'm done with NS after this and Reamde.

I have yet to read Seveneves but I quite enjoyed Anathem, and I know I read Reamde but fail to remember anything of significance from it.

Just no damn time to read for pleasure anymore.

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azatoth Grand Master

azatoth

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Seveneves has spergy orbital mechanics for the first half. You know how NS gets when he gets into something, you get it all with no editing. Still a good read, although the latter half seemed a bit rushed and less dense than the first. Liked the dread of the first part, though.

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chenGOD Grand Master

chenGOD

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Seveneves has spergy orbital mechanics for the first half. You know how NS gets when he gets into something, you get it all with no editing. Still a good read, although the latter half seemed a bit rushed and less dense than the first. Liked the dread of the first part, though.

 

I'm excited to read it now - I love that about him - he just goes full braindump, but in usually well-written prose.

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