Sci-Fi / Fantasy Reads

[ithuriel]

Watched the movie which  was apparently quite different from the book, never understood why a series has never been made based on the book which I've heard a bit about but have yet to read.

 

[Zear0]

11 minutes ago, ithuriel said:

Watched the movie which  was apparently quite different from the book, never understood why a series has never been made based on the book which I've heard a bit about but have yet to read.

 

Not read it for some time but do recall the book being great. Mix of horror and crime literature and quite Dracula-esque of having the creature live among us. 

[gerblod]

On 02/08/2023 at 21:58, CheeseHead said:

 

For the FT sci-fi/fantasy readers out there, what/who were your own early influences?

Frederick Pohl, Aldiss, Sheckley, Hal Clement, van Vogt. Above all I think Pohl, James Blish and Philip Dick.

[CheeseHead]

Just finished 'Solaris' by Stanislaw Lem. Decent but unfulfilling ending. On to 'The Dispossessed' by Ursula K Le Guin

[Zear0]

1 minute ago, CheeseHead said:

Just finished 'Solaris' by Stanislaw Lem. Decent but unfulfilling ending. On to 'The Dispossessed' by Ursula K Le Guin

Superb book. If you enjoy The Dispossessed, I'd consider giving The Left Hand of Darkness a go too. She's more known for Earthsea, but those two books are her greatest works for me. 

[EnderbyFox]

Just finished the latest book in the Red Rising series by Pierce Brown, so good. Definitely recommend.

 

 

Red Rising is a futuristic dystopian series set in a world where society is divided up into various Colors. Each Color has a particular job that they contribute to society, and the Colors also create a very strict social hierarchy. The Red Rising series follows Darrow, a member of the Reds, the lowest ranked Color. The Reds lived below the surface of Mars and they mine energy for the rest of the society. The Reds have always been told that they must stay underground because humans have made the surface completely uninhabitable. However, Darrow (and the reader) finds out that the situation is much more complicated than that. After suffering tragedy at the hands of the tyrannical government running their society, Darrow decides to infiltrate the highest levels of society, the Golds, and dismantle it from the inside out.

 

 

[Number 6]

Some good recommendations in here thanks all.

 

My gateway in was probably through being a big Iain Banks fan and so dabbling in some Iain M Banks stuff. Really enjoyed The Player of Games.

 

Dune probably the pinnacle of the genre on the sci fi side for me. The Name Of The Wind, or A Song of Ice And Fire on the fantasy side (A Storm of Swords is right up there with Dune).

 

Recently really enjoyed the Broken Earth series by NK Jemesin. Though the first in the trilogy is definitely the strongest. The Silo series by Hugh Howey was also really enjoyable (series currently on Apple TV+).

[Trav Le Bleu]

Just finishing off The Long Cosmos by Stephen Baxter & Terry Prachett.

 

5th and final book in the Long Earth series and I've loved it.

 

Essentially humankind learns to travel between parallel Earths by "stepping", an endless chain of differing earths that have developed separately and so are very slightly different. However, it's only our earth that has humans on it, though some earths have humanoid creatures living on them.

 

It's an interesting idea, well worked. What would humanity do, given an infinite space to easily expand into? Would governments lose their grip on their people? Would wars stop, when it is so easy to just "step" away? How would markets cope with a sudden infinite source of raw materials.

 

The world's the two authors create are imaginative and mostly very different for our earth and the creatures that inhabit them are weird and wonderful.

 

I've basically hoovered up this whole series in one go (I read the first book, then saw a box set in The Works for £10), and loved every page of it.

 

Recommended.

[CheeseHead]

So I've just watched Dune 2. Pretty good, though felt a little disjointed at times. But I guess it is not the easiest book to take to the big screen. I'm sure there were quite a differences with the book, but I seem to recall that the Baron was killed by a born Alia, or am I imagining things? Paul kills him in the film.