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Author Topic: Suggested Reading

Rong posted 03-27-99 09:44 PM ET
One of the bigger complaints about SMAC is its lack of familarity to the average Joe gamer, who may not be particularly interested in Science Fiction, or Science in general. However, I feel the situation can be easily rectified by reading a few good books. In the game manual there is a section "Suggested Reading" (Appendix 5), listing the titles that the game designers considered good background reading. I haven't read all of them, and there is no point in repeating the list here. What I want to see in this thread are books that you have read, considered worth recommending, that may help to build up the SMAC atomsphere.
Ok, let me start off:
RED MARS
Kim Stanley Robinson
Actually, it's part of the Mars Trilogy (the other two being Green Mars and Blue Mars). I first heard of it on this forum (that was long time ago), so I hurried to our Public Library and borrowed it. Great book! It's a story about mankind colonizing Mars. You can see traces of SMAC concepts in there. Terraforming, Space Elevator, factional conflicts, etc. I personally think the coolest part is how the Space Elevator fell down: it wrapped around Mars two and half times, smashing towns and forming diamonds along the way. Highly recommended.
2001: A Space Odyssey
Arthur C. Clarke, Stanley Kubrick
Even if you've seen the movie, this book is still worth reading. It's more detailed and intimate, and definitely easier to comprehend. The relevance to SMAC? Well, they are both about space exploration. You have the mysterious monolith. And best of all, the book tells you what transcendance really is.
The Inflationary Universe
Alan H. Guth
This is a non-fiction by the inventor of Inflation Theory, one of the most important (and controversal) discoveries in cosmology since Big Bang. The author provides interesting accounts on Magenetic Monopoles,
Unified Theory and how they are related to the origin of the universe. Real science in plain English. It does get challenging at places, but if you have the patience to read it through, you'll have a whole new understanding of science, the universe, and everything. A must read for your UofP guys.
Admittingly I'm from a Physics/CS background so I am not that familar with other subject matters. For example, I've never heard of Eudaimonia prior to SMAC. If you sociology/history majors can recommend a book or two, I am sure you'll be appreciated not only by me but also by other keen SMACers on this board.
So what is your recommendation?

Alexnm posted 03-28-99 01:00 AM ET
Hi, Rong.
I have graduated in Philosophy some time ago, so my recommendations are about the concept of Eudaimonia ("happiness" ou "individual welfare" in Greek). My suggestions are the discussion of happiness in "Nicomachean Ethics", by Aristotle, and a very comprehensive and informative book: "Paideia" by Werner Jaeger. Both have important pieces of information regarding the concept of Eudaimonia (which has been largely adopted and followed by the Western civilisation). If I remember something more, I will post it here.
Alexnm
MikeH II posted 04-01-99 07:16 AM ET
The Player of Games, Ian M. Banks.
Pure Sci-Fi About a games player playing the most complicated strategy game in the galaxy, brilliant.
Earwicker posted 04-06-99 10:40 AM ET
Don't remember if this is on the list, but _Solaris_ by Stanislaw Lem seems the right fit for this game. A good read, really capturing the isolation and disorientation of being in a bewlideringly different place. And when the planet starts acting up on them, we SMAC'ers would know why . . .
There's also a movie of it (1972, directed by Andrei Tarkhovsky), which is very worthwhile.
Elemental posted 04-06-99 01:41 PM ET
I'd second that, MikeH. Iain M Banks is da business. Excession is one of his more readable books, and also pretty amusing as well. Consider Phlebas is different, but just as good. Apparently they're making it into a movie.
Additionally:
Stephen Baxter: Vacuum Diagrams and Traces are both excellent anthologies. Baxter is one of the best future history writers in the UK, let alone the world.
Peter F Hamilton: I've just started off on his Night's Dawn Trilogy (with Reality Dysfunction) and it's shaping up very well. Only comment is that his books are pretty long (1200+ pages).
Isaac Asimov: Could there be a better writer? I think not. Just read the Foundation series.
Catherine Asaro: OK, I've only read one of her stories, Aurora in Four Voices, but I tell you know, it's possibly the best short story I've ever read. It's online at:
http://www.sfsite.com/analog/nebula/aurora.html
(BTW, that's all above board; it's not been put online illegally).
Give it a look - it's not every day that you get quality SF on the net for free.
darkbird posted 04-06-99 01:51 PM ET
Hi
If you want to get a handle of the tech
used in smac you might want to read
The Dragons egg and starquake and Roche
World by Robert Forward
The Time frame & tech is very simlar to SMAC
And the apendixes in the books explain the tech used very well
DerekM posted 04-06-99 01:55 PM ET
Arthur C. Clarke, "The Gardens of Paradise," is THE story about space elevators.
Larry Niven, "Beowulf's Children," is a good book about colonists on a new world who bite off more than they think. I would rather face mindworms than grendels.
I also recommend Peter Hamilton. If you don't want to get into a BIG series of books, then try the new anthology of stories set in the same universe which he just published.
Finally, try out Vernor Vinge. He only has two books out, and I've only read one. "A Fire Upon the Deep" is fantastic, though, truly immersive and imaginative.
sandworm posted 04-06-99 02:10 PM ET
I'm just finishing the last 100 or so pages of Vinge's "Fire upon the Deep", it does suck you in, there's fungus, transcendence and some really wild but interesting science fiction ideas, as well as a good story, which I'm not about to tell anyone about - except to say I'm really enjoying it.
SW
Elemental posted 04-06-99 06:02 PM ET
DerekM: It's the Fountains of Paradise, not the Gardens of Paradise. But it is a good book (just finished re-reading it).
Another good author:
Kim Stanley Robinson: Mars series: Pretty hard sci-fi, but also very believable. Can drag on a bit (according to others). Myself, I like Blue Mars the best, although everyone I've spoken to can't even read the first 100 pages. In fact, one person refused to even start reading Blue Mars until I provided him with a synopsis. Oh well.
MikeH II posted 04-08-99 06:43 AM ET
I read the whole of Blue Mars in a few days, couldn't put it down.
Excession is a great book, I'm in the middle of it now.
Zero_Gauss posted 04-09-99 08:42 PM ET

OMG!
"The Dragon's Egg," and "Starquake," are truly awesome sci-fi books!
In fact my very handle comes from one of the more memorable (if short-lived) characters; an alien no larger than a few centimeters living on the surface of a neutron star at 100 times what we as humans think of as "normal" time.
Her whole experimentation was focused at suspending the stupendous 3-trillion-gauss field exuded by their neutron star, so that she could prove once and for all how objects react under "normal" or "zero" gravity. Hence Zero-Gauss.
But I digress, the two books are truly just top-notch very hard sci-fi. They can even be found as a super-two-in-one book, I think put out by Baen Books. The author is robert forward, a leading astro-physicist who KNOWS his neutron stars.
CHECK 'EM OUT! Even if you don't have the time to read through 'em regularly, just use it as a "toilet" book. I loaned my copies to my older brother, who read through them in the course of a few months by leaving it on top of his toilet. Every time he made a donation to the porcelain temple, he read a couple more pages =]
live well,
Zero-Gauss
Sui posted 04-09-99 11:39 PM ET
DerekM,
If you liked "Beowulf's Children", try the prequel, "Legacy of Heorot" by Niven/Pournelle/Barnes. Good read and shows how if you screw with the ecology, it will come back to bite you on the ass (ouch! --being bitten by a Grendel would hurt!).
Actually, anything by Niven/Pournelle combo is pretty good.
Now I'm off to check out my local library's website to see if they have "A Fire Upon the Deep".
TTFN
DerekM posted 04-10-99 06:40 PM ET
Whoops, I screwed up the title of one book and got the order wrong on another. I was at work when I wrote it, so I couldn't check my copies.
I've actually read most of Niven's work. My favorites are probably the multi-volume Ringworld series, The Mote in God's Eye/The Gripping Hand, and the Dreampark series. All very highly recommended. The first is about a ringworld, a massive ring-shaped habitat circling a star. The second deals with human contact with a very interesting alien species. The third talks about the ultimate amusement park (a must-read for RPG fans).
I will read pretty much anything by Niven, Clarke, Heinlein or Asimov. I'm also a big fan of Orson Scott Card, and the alternate histories that Harry Turtledove specializes in.
Gaius_Julius posted 04-10-99 08:07 PM ET
Another book I would like to recommend would be "3001: The Final Odyssey" also by Arthur C. Clarke. It includes some elements of SMAC such as space elevators and also has something similar in nature to transcendance (the Soulcatcher). An excellent read.
Elemental posted 04-11-99 04:51 AM ET
The only thing I don't like about 3001 is it's Disney-like 'cuddly' nature. You know, it's absolutely nothing like 2001, 2010 or 2061. It's too nice. Nothing bad happens in it. I mean, dinosaurs as gardeners?
It's almost as if he wrote it specifically for the purpose of it being a movie. Hmm...
Sui posted 04-11-99 06:12 PM ET
Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke and Niven, not to mention Orson Scott Card. Jesus DerekM, sounds like you peeked at my home library.
It's too bad R.A.H. had to stop writing (though I understand dying has that effect on people). As for Card, he has written a few that would be on my "stranded on a dessert island" list -- most notably the Ender series (Speaker for the Dead!) and the Homecoming Series.
I've never read anything by Turtledove. Can you suggest a title or two to start with? Just finished Pratchett's 23rd Discworld novel and am loose ends. Heck, I'm always looking for a good read!
mwjc posted 04-13-99 08:24 PM ET
I read an interesting colonization story from a set of Jpn comic books called "2001 Nights" translated by Viz comics. The whole set does not have any central characters, but it's about the space advancement of the whole human race, starting with just some satellites around the orbits, ending with colonization and search for alien lifeforms.
One of the stories is about human's early attempt in colonization. At that point, space travel is still slow, and it will take many human lifespans for it to reach the destination. So, instead of sending humans, they send sperms and eggs! Once the spaceship
is close to its destination, the fertilization process begins, and many human
babies are born. Onboard the ship are a pair of robot parents who take care of them.
Meanwhile, humans on earth have made great leaps in space travel. They can now reach the destination of that colonization in a much shorter time, within human lifespan (but somehow they can't locate the exact location of that earlier spaceship or determine whether it is still on course). So, they send a whole new spaceship and crew to the destination, terraform the whole planet to create a "paradise" for the arrival of these "children of earth".
It's probably unlikely...but wouldn't it be interesting that those alien monoliths and artifacts are left there by human beings, not aliens?
gotag posted 04-13-99 08:41 PM ET
Sui, A book I would recommend is "Startide Rising" by David Brin (plus the followups) Great Book about Humanity meeting Aliens for the first time. Won the Hugo and Nebular awards.
ProximaCentauri posted 04-13-99 11:56 PM ET
Another book that is mentioned in the game manual as an inspiration is Frank Herbert's "The Jesus Incident". It's not one of Herbert's better known works and I found it rather tedious (it was the sequel to the even more tedious "Destination: Void"). But it is the real inspiration for SMAC. Almost everything in the game has some origin in the book, including mindworm-like creatures that burrow into your face (with an aquatic vector), drone riots (really "clone riots" in the book), kelp farms an even a trancendent ending. Check this out of the library if you want to see where SMAC comes from.
--Proxima Centauri .Oo
Cesar Carreira posted 04-14-99 08:58 AM ET
Miller, Walter Jr
"A Canticle for Leibowitz"
This perfect blend of Science and Religion
was a US best-seller in the Cold War.
If you read it you will know why there is no happy end in a war based civilization.
It's amazing !!!
madfly posted 04-14-99 12:13 PM ET
Umm, good Books -
The Songs of distant earth - Arthur C. Clarke
Battlefield Earth - L Ron Hubard (Sp?)
Titan - Greg Bear (???)
Dune - Frank Herbert
and, err, the Edd The Duck annual 1995!
Classic Reading!
Sui posted 04-14-99 12:38 PM ET
gotag, ProximaCentauri, Cesar Carreira, madfly et. al.
Tks mates. Off to the library for a quick recce this weekend. Thank God I've just finished the latest Discworld novel! Now I can plan my summer reading (ahhhh... warm sunshine, cold Guinness, good book(s)... it doesn't get any better than this -- sans computer that is, oh.. and while the wife is away of course!)
DerekM posted 04-14-99 12:52 PM ET
If anybody is interested in Turtledove, I would recommend a couple of books. If you're into fantasy at all, try "The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump." An EPA investigator gets involved in a major international plot when he discovers a particularly nasty toxic spell dump in California. Another good work by Turtledove is "The Guns of the South." What happens when racists go back in time and arm the Confederate States with...AK-47s?
A more realistic alternate history would be the Great War series, starting with "How Few Remain." The book is about the 2nd American Civil War.
BTW: Anybody interested in Brin would be advised to try and dig up a copy of the original book in the series that "The Uplift War" is a part of. It's called "Sundiver," and it serves as a good introduction to the universe Brin has created across at least six different novels.
Another recommendation: Piers Anthony, the "Bio of a Space Tyrant" series. It is quite obviously a Cold War inspired fable, but still entertaining. The last book in the series talks about humans finally leaving the solar system. He's an author generally better known for his fantasy, like Xanth (which I've also read almost every book of).
Has anybody tried the new Foundation trilogy, by Bear, Benford and Brin? I've bought the first two in paperback, but I haven't read them yet.
woodelf posted 04-14-99 01:11 PM ET
DerekM - If you like classic Asimov then the new ones will turn your stomach. At least that was my experience. Of course opinions are like *blank*, everyone has one.
Elemental - You mentioned Baxter; I just finished Moonseed. Great book. I'll have to check out his others.
As for the Mars Trilogy, well they just dragged on and on and on and.... I liked the first one, but it seemed commercial after that.
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Author	Topic: Suggested Reading
Rong	posted 03-27-99 09:44 PM ET One of the bigger complaints about SMAC is its lack of familarity to the average Joe gamer, who may not be particularly interested in Science Fiction, or Science in general. However, I feel the situation can be easily rectified by reading a few good books. In the game manual there is a section "Suggested Reading" (Appendix 5), listing the titles that the game designers considered good background reading. I haven't read all of them, and there is no point in repeating the list here. What I want to see in this thread are books that you have read, considered worth recommending, that may help to build up the SMAC atomsphere. Ok, let me start off: RED MARS Kim Stanley Robinson Actually, it's part of the Mars Trilogy (the other two being Green Mars and Blue Mars). I first heard of it on this forum (that was long time ago), so I hurried to our Public Library and borrowed it. Great book! It's a story about mankind colonizing Mars. You can see traces of SMAC concepts in there. Terraforming, Space Elevator, factional conflicts, etc. I personally think the coolest part is how the Space Elevator fell down: it wrapped around Mars two and half times, smashing towns and forming diamonds along the way. Highly recommended. 2001: A Space Odyssey Arthur C. Clarke, Stanley Kubrick Even if you've seen the movie, this book is still worth reading. It's more detailed and intimate, and definitely easier to comprehend. The relevance to SMAC? Well, they are both about space exploration. You have the mysterious monolith. And best of all, the book tells you what transcendance really is. The Inflationary Universe Alan H. Guth This is a non-fiction by the inventor of Inflation Theory, one of the most important (and controversal) discoveries in cosmology since Big Bang. The author provides interesting accounts on Magenetic Monopoles, Unified Theory and how they are related to the origin of the universe. Real science in plain English. It does get challenging at places, but if you have the patience to read it through, you'll have a whole new understanding of science, the universe, and everything. A must read for your UofP guys. Admittingly I'm from a Physics/CS background so I am not that familar with other subject matters. For example, I've never heard of Eudaimonia prior to SMAC. If you sociology/history majors can recommend a book or two, I am sure you'll be appreciated not only by me but also by other keen SMACers on this board. So what is your recommendation?
Alexnm	posted 03-28-99 01:00 AM ET Hi, Rong. I have graduated in Philosophy some time ago, so my recommendations are about the concept of Eudaimonia ("happiness" ou "individual welfare" in Greek). My suggestions are the discussion of happiness in "Nicomachean Ethics", by Aristotle, and a very comprehensive and informative book: "Paideia" by Werner Jaeger. Both have important pieces of information regarding the concept of Eudaimonia (which has been largely adopted and followed by the Western civilisation). If I remember something more, I will post it here. Alexnm
MikeH II	posted 04-01-99 07:16 AM ET The Player of Games, Ian M. Banks. Pure Sci-Fi About a games player playing the most complicated strategy game in the galaxy, brilliant.
Earwicker	posted 04-06-99 10:40 AM ET Don't remember if this is on the list, but _Solaris_ by Stanislaw Lem seems the right fit for this game. A good read, really capturing the isolation and disorientation of being in a bewlideringly different place. And when the planet starts acting up on them, we SMAC'ers would know why . . . There's also a movie of it (1972, directed by Andrei Tarkhovsky), which is very worthwhile.
Elemental	posted 04-06-99 01:41 PM ET I'd second that, MikeH. Iain M Banks is da business. <i>Excession</i> is one of his more readable books, and also pretty amusing as well. <i>Consider Phlebas</i> is different, but just as good. Apparently they're making it into a movie. Additionally: Stephen Baxter: Vacuum Diagrams and Traces are both excellent anthologies. Baxter is one of the best future history writers in the UK, let alone the world. Peter F Hamilton: I've just started off on his Night's Dawn Trilogy (with Reality Dysfunction) and it's shaping up very well. Only comment is that his books are pretty long (1200+ pages). Isaac Asimov: Could there <i>be</i> a better writer? I think not. Just read the Foundation series. Catherine Asaro: OK, I've only read one of her stories, Aurora in Four Voices, but I tell you know, it's possibly the best short story I've ever read. It's online at: http://www.sfsite.com/analog/nebula/aurora.html (BTW, that's all above board; it's not been put online illegally). Give it a look - it's not every day that you get quality SF on the net for free.
darkbird	posted 04-06-99 01:51 PM ET Hi If you want to get a handle of the tech used in smac you might want to read The Dragons egg and starquake and Roche World by Robert Forward The Time frame & tech is very simlar to SMAC And the apendixes in the books explain the tech used very well
DerekM	posted 04-06-99 01:55 PM ET Arthur C. Clarke, "The Gardens of Paradise," is THE story about space elevators. Larry Niven, "Beowulf's Children," is a good book about colonists on a new world who bite off more than they think. I would rather face mindworms than grendels. I also recommend Peter Hamilton. If you don't want to get into a BIG series of books, then try the new anthology of stories set in the same universe which he just published. Finally, try out Vernor Vinge. He only has two books out, and I've only read one. "A Fire Upon the Deep" is fantastic, though, truly immersive and imaginative.
sandworm	posted 04-06-99 02:10 PM ET I'm just finishing the last 100 or so pages of Vinge's "Fire upon the Deep", it does suck you in, there's fungus, transcendence and some really wild but interesting science fiction ideas, as well as a good story, which I'm not about to tell anyone about - except to say I'm really enjoying it. SW
Elemental	posted 04-06-99 06:02 PM ET DerekM: It's the Fountains of Paradise, not the Gardens of Paradise. But it is a good book (just finished re-reading it). Another good author: Kim Stanley Robinson: Mars series: Pretty hard sci-fi, but also very believable. Can drag on a bit (according to others). Myself, I like Blue Mars the best, although everyone I've spoken to can't even read the first 100 pages. In fact, one person refused to even start reading Blue Mars until I provided him with a synopsis. Oh well.
MikeH II	posted 04-08-99 06:43 AM ET I read the whole of Blue Mars in a few days, couldn't put it down. Excession is a great book, I'm in the middle of it now.
Zero_Gauss	posted 04-09-99 08:42 PM ET OMG! "The Dragon's Egg," and "Starquake," are truly awesome sci-fi books! In fact my very handle comes from one of the more memorable (if short-lived) characters; an alien no larger than a few centimeters living on the surface of a neutron star at 100 times what we as humans think of as "normal" time. Her whole experimentation was focused at suspending the stupendous 3-trillion-gauss field exuded by their neutron star, so that she could prove once and for all how objects react under "normal" or "zero" gravity. Hence Zero-Gauss. But I digress, the two books are truly just top-notch very hard sci-fi. They can even be found as a super-two-in-one book, I think put out by Baen Books. The author is robert forward, a leading astro-physicist who KNOWS his neutron stars. CHECK 'EM OUT! Even if you don't have the time to read through 'em regularly, just use it as a "toilet" book. I loaned my copies to my older brother, who read through them in the course of a few months by leaving it on top of his toilet. Every time he made a donation to the porcelain temple, he read a couple more pages =] live well, Zero-Gauss
Sui	posted 04-09-99 11:39 PM ET DerekM, If you liked "Beowulf's Children", try the prequel, "Legacy of Heorot" by Niven/Pournelle/Barnes. Good read and shows how if you screw with the ecology, it will come back to bite you on the ass (ouch! --being bitten by a Grendel would hurt!). Actually, anything by Niven/Pournelle combo is pretty good. Now I'm off to check out my local library's website to see if they have "A Fire Upon the Deep". TTFN
DerekM	posted 04-10-99 06:40 PM ET Whoops, I screwed up the title of one book and got the order wrong on another. I was at work when I wrote it, so I couldn't check my copies. I've actually read most of Niven's work. My favorites are probably the multi-volume Ringworld series, The Mote in God's Eye/The Gripping Hand, and the Dreampark series. All very highly recommended. The first is about a ringworld, a massive ring-shaped habitat circling a star. The second deals with human contact with a very interesting alien species. The third talks about the ultimate amusement park (a must-read for RPG fans). I will read pretty much anything by Niven, Clarke, Heinlein or Asimov. I'm also a big fan of Orson Scott Card, and the alternate histories that Harry Turtledove specializes in.
Gaius_Julius	posted 04-10-99 08:07 PM ET Another book I would like to recommend would be "3001: The Final Odyssey" also by Arthur C. Clarke. It includes some elements of SMAC such as space elevators and also has something similar in nature to transcendance (the Soulcatcher). An excellent read.
Elemental	posted 04-11-99 04:51 AM ET The only thing I don't like about 3001 is it's Disney-like 'cuddly' nature. You know, it's absolutely nothing like 2001, 2010 or 2061. It's too nice. Nothing bad happens in it. I mean, dinosaurs as gardeners? It's almost as if he wrote it specifically for the purpose of it being a movie. Hmm...
Sui	posted 04-11-99 06:12 PM ET Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke and Niven, not to mention Orson Scott Card. Jesus DerekM, sounds like you peeked at my home library. It's too bad R.A.H. had to stop writing (though I understand dying has that effect on people). As for Card, he has written a few that would be on my "stranded on a dessert island" list -- most notably the Ender series (Speaker for the Dead!) and the Homecoming Series. I've never read anything by Turtledove. Can you suggest a title or two to start with? Just finished Pratchett's 23rd Discworld novel and am loose ends. Heck, I'm always looking for a good read!
mwjc	posted 04-13-99 08:24 PM ET I read an interesting colonization story from a set of Jpn comic books called "2001 Nights" translated by Viz comics. The whole set does not have any central characters, but it's about the space advancement of the whole human race, starting with just some satellites around the orbits, ending with colonization and search for alien lifeforms. One of the stories is about human's early attempt in colonization. At that point, space travel is still slow, and it will take many human lifespans for it to reach the destination. So, instead of sending humans, they send sperms and eggs! Once the spaceship is close to its destination, the fertilization process begins, and many human babies are born. Onboard the ship are a pair of robot parents who take care of them. Meanwhile, humans on earth have made great leaps in space travel. They can now reach the destination of that colonization in a much shorter time, within human lifespan (but somehow they can't locate the exact location of that earlier spaceship or determine whether it is still on course). So, they send a whole new spaceship and crew to the destination, terraform the whole planet to create a "paradise" for the arrival of these "children of earth". It's probably unlikely...but wouldn't it be interesting that those alien monoliths and artifacts are left there by human beings, not aliens?
gotag	posted 04-13-99 08:41 PM ET Sui, A book I would recommend is "Startide Rising" by David Brin (plus the followups) Great Book about Humanity meeting Aliens for the first time. Won the Hugo and Nebular awards.
ProximaCentauri	posted 04-13-99 11:56 PM ET Another book that is mentioned in the game manual as an inspiration is Frank Herbert's "The Jesus Incident". It's not one of Herbert's better known works and I found it rather tedious (it was the sequel to the even more tedious "Destination: Void"). But it is the real inspiration for SMAC. Almost everything in the game has some origin in the book, including mindworm-like creatures that burrow into your face (with an aquatic vector), drone riots (really "clone riots" in the book), kelp farms an even a trancendent ending. Check this out of the library if you want to see where SMAC comes from. --Proxima Centauri .Oo
Cesar Carreira	posted 04-14-99 08:58 AM ET Miller, Walter Jr "A Canticle for Leibowitz" This perfect blend of Science and Religion was a US best-seller in the Cold War. If you read it you will know why there is no happy end in a war based civilization. It's amazing !!!
madfly	posted 04-14-99 12:13 PM ET Umm, good Books - The Songs of distant earth - Arthur C. Clarke Battlefield Earth - L Ron Hubard (Sp?) Titan - Greg Bear (???) Dune - Frank Herbert and, err, the Edd The Duck annual 1995! Classic Reading!
Sui	posted 04-14-99 12:38 PM ET gotag, ProximaCentauri, Cesar Carreira, madfly et. al. Tks mates. Off to the library for a quick recce this weekend. Thank God I've just finished the latest Discworld novel! Now I can plan my summer reading (ahhhh... warm sunshine, cold Guinness, good book(s)... it doesn't get any better than this -- sans computer that is, oh.. and while the wife is away of course!)
DerekM	posted 04-14-99 12:52 PM ET If anybody is interested in Turtledove, I would recommend a couple of books. If you're into fantasy at all, try "The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump." An EPA investigator gets involved in a major international plot when he discovers a particularly nasty toxic spell dump in California. Another good work by Turtledove is "The Guns of the South." What happens when racists go back in time and arm the Confederate States with...AK-47s? A more realistic alternate history would be the Great War series, starting with "How Few Remain." The book is about the 2nd American Civil War. BTW: Anybody interested in Brin would be advised to try and dig up a copy of the original book in the series that "The Uplift War" is a part of. It's called "Sundiver," and it serves as a good introduction to the universe Brin has created across at least six different novels. Another recommendation: Piers Anthony, the "Bio of a Space Tyrant" series. It is quite obviously a Cold War inspired fable, but still entertaining. The last book in the series talks about humans finally leaving the solar system. He's an author generally better known for his fantasy, like Xanth (which I've also read almost every book of). Has anybody tried the new Foundation trilogy, by Bear, Benford and Brin? I've bought the first two in paperback, but I haven't read them yet.
woodelf	posted 04-14-99 01:11 PM ET DerekM - If you like classic Asimov then the new ones will turn your stomach. At least that was my experience. Of course opinions are like blank, everyone has one. Elemental - You mentioned Baxter; I just finished Moonseed. Great book. I'll have to check out his others. As for the Mars Trilogy, well they just dragged on and on and on and.... I liked the first one, but it seemed commercial after that.