/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.750770]

I want to start reading heavily into science fiction and fantasy, but dont know where to start, I've read Dune (just the first one),StarShip Troopers, most of Orson Scott Card's stuff, Ring world, LORT, The Dresden files, The Legend of Drizzet, and I've started reading The Malazan Book of the fallen series.

TL;DR, Good Science fiction and fantasy books

[Anonymous No.750775]

I'd say you've read enough fantasy/sci-fi.

Now read some real literature.

[Anonymous No.750773]

>but dont know where to start

Philip K. Dick
Arthur C. Clarke
Robert A. Heinlein
Isaac Asimov

[Anonymous No.750784]

>>750775
this

[Anonymous No.750789]

>>750773

oh wait you want fantasy too.

Essential:

A Song of Ice and Fire
Wheel of Time (obligatory even if it's not particularly good)

Excellent:

Gene Wolfe's work (Book of the New Sun in particular)
Robin Hobb's work (Liveship Traders, Farseer, Tawny Man)
Brandon Sanderson's work (Mistborn, Warbreaker, Elantris)
Guy Gavriel Kay's work (Tigana, Lions of Al-Rassan, Sarantium Mosaic)
The Name of the Wind
The Lies of Locke Lamora

[Anonymous No.750797]

Oh and of course you have to read Ender's Game, because everyone under the sun has read Ender's Game. Same goes for Neuromancer

[Anonymous No.750800]

One of my favorites.

[GL Pretentious Hipster !!uIkcv+zTDkg No.750807]

>>750775

I'm a Pretentious Hipster, but shit, man. Go Die in a Fire in the Second Novel.

OP, Larry Niven has some awesome shit. A lot (if not most/all) of it is Hard Sci-Fi. If you want something you can just jump into, The Long Arm of Gil Hamilton by Larry Niven is a collection of Hard Sci-Fi detective stories.

If you're interested in his works, I suggest the following reading order:

World of Ptavvs (optional -- it provides background for a lot of things, but some of the stuff in it is very, very dated.)
The Long Arm of Gil Hamilton
Protector
A Gift from Earth
Crashlander
Ringworld
Ringworld Engineers
Ringworld Throne
Ringworld's Children

[Anonymous No.750827]

Some good science fiction:

Iain M Banks - Use of Weapons, Look to Windward, Player of Games
Alastair Reynolds - Revelation Space
Ursula K Le Guin - The Dispossessed
M John Harrison - Light, Nova Swing
Ken MacLeod - Learning the World
Geoff Ryman - Air

[Anonymous No.750831]

[Anonymous No.750833]

>>750807

I'll admit sci-fi has some cool ideas, but all their prose is shit and they can't make decent characters to save their lives (Bradbury is an exception). Hard sci-fi is even worse, it's just techno-fapping for the author.

[Anonymous No.750842]

>>750775
>>750784
If it weren't for the people largely inspired by sci-fi, you wouldn't have an internet, or the sattelite network your cable TV is dependant on (trust me, even not-dish cable companies use sattelites), or your cell phone, or a hell of a lot of other things you take for granted.

Learn some respect, bitch.

[Anonymous No.750844]

>>750833

>but all their prose is shit

Fascinating.

[Anonymous No.750855]

>>750833
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_Law

Both of these apply.

[Anonymous No.750861]

>>750842

What the hell does those things have to do with science fiction? They would have come around whether or not some people wrote books about spaceships and aliens

[Anonymous No.750863]

>>750770

Is that a fucking Halo?

[Anonymous No.750882]

>>750863

So... Halo just ripoff someone's work?

[Anonymous No.750884]

>>750863
I think Halo was probably inspired by Ringworld, not the other way around...

[Anonymous No.750885]

1. Keep reading Malazan Book of the Fallen until Karsa Orlong shows up.
2. WITNESS!
3. PROFIT!

[Anonymous No.750888]

>>750884

Yea I know that but. Why no one's give the credit this guy deserves? (Larry Niven) Because I think his name should be on the cover of every book and every game based on Halo Universe.

[Anonymous No.750889]

>>750842
>>750842

i'd be fine w/o all of this. i'm not a fat guy with nothing else to do irl

[Anonymous No.750897]

>>750889
>he says he's not a fat guy with nothing else to do
>he's on 4chan

[Anonymous No.750905]

>>750889
>implying you'd be fine without all the things directly or indirectly caused by people inspired by science fiction

Only counting the people that openly state that they were inspired by specific science fiction, that's still a huge amount of modern inventions.

[Anonymous No.750912]

>>750897
Some of us are scrawny pale guys with nothing else to do.

[Anonymous No.750915]

>>750789
I was told not to read A song of fire and Ice untill the next book came out :/

[Anonymous No.750917]

>>750912
I'm >>750897

I'm actually a scrawny pale guy with nothing else to do. But usually when you claim to not be fat in a post saying everyone is fat, people just question you about it, so I let it go.

[Anonymous No.750921]

>>750897
i'm a girl :(
that hates fat guys

[Anonymous No.750924]

>>750915
sorry I meant Ice and Fire

[Anonymous No.750936]

>>750921
How do you feel about scrawny pale ones? I'm 135 pounds of pure awesome.

[Anonymous No.750938]

>>750936

>I'm also 4'6''

[Anonymous No.750939]

>>750936
i prefer them :D

[Anonymous No.750975]

>>750827
>doesn't mentione Excession, the best Culture novel

[Anonymous No.750978]

LotR is no good, read instead:
Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories
The Broken Sword & Three Hearts and Three Lions
The Mabinogion
in fact just go through the Millenium/Gollancz Fantasy Masterworks line - except their Moorcock, he can write about fantasy pretty well (Epic Pooh essay) but he can not write fantasy IMO, I read the first two Elric novels and it was worse than anything originally printed in Weird Tales in the 1930s that I have ever read.
Also the Ballantine Adult Fantasy books if you like digging through secondhand bookshops.
>>750773
What is this 1950? You could have at least said Alfred Bester. Put down Analog and Amazing Stories before you start telling us about Dianetics and Dean Drives and the Shaver Mystery.
You & OP go read about the New Wave and its authors:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Wave_%28science_fiction%29
the Millenium/Gollancz SF Masterworks line is pretty good, a mix of some pre-20th century and pulp classics and New Wave and more recent. But too much Dick IMO, I think anyone can just read Man in the High Castle and then move on.

If you go to secondhand bookshops, look for the anthologies in their science fiction/fantasy section, pick them up and any sample of an authors work you like follow up on.

[Anonymous No.750984]

>>750975
Okay I'll mention Excession for you:

read Excession

[Anonymous No.751002]

>>750939
Well fuck yeah. Femanons are both my favorite females and favorite anons!

[Anonymous No.751010]

>>750978

I'm going to have to disagree about Moorcock's fantasy. Read him, OP; shit's awesome.

[Anonymous No.751020]

>>750984
Thanks, bro.

Excession was awesome.

[Anonymous No.751024]

>>751010
Like I said, I read the first two Elric novels.
The Stealer of Souls, Chronicles of the Last Emperor of Melniboné: Volume I
It was one of the worst things I have ever read and certainly below the standards of work I have read that was first published in Weird Tales in the 1930s: Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, etc

[Anonymous No.751030]

>>750775
E/lit/eist, much?

[Anonymous No.751170]

>>750915
Fuck that shit, the first three books on their own constitute what is arguably close to a complete series, at least a complete cycle. Whatever he does or doesn't put out after can't change how great they are.

Just put off on reading book 4 until 5 comes out, that makes sense, as many events in them probably take place concurrently.

[Anonymous No.751340]

Short stories: try Michael Flynn.

[Anonymous No.751355]

>>750770
Check out some Michael Crichton. While his books aren't what people expect in Sci-Fi (aliens, space travel, etc.). His stuff is very much based in real world science and he does a great job of making everything he writes about very believable.