Spring RTS Engine

Bio-Of The Space Tyrant Key Points:

Rape, Murder, Gang-Rape, Pedophilia, Potential Incest Fantasy, Age of consent changed to 12, Piers Anthony explains how we can fix all of societies problems (key point, make everyone infertile)... sex with master of disguise who can look like his 12 year old girl-friend who got killed in the first book, sex with a chick who can't move her legs while he fantasizes about his girlfriend who dies in the first book... polygamy... justified prostitution... alright, so there are "some" "minor" problems with it... though he does warn you of this in the first chapter. Also, Bubblene. It's funny that the book seems to be trying to model the cold-war world in grand style but effectively ends up being narcissistic self-masturbatory fantasy on the part of the author... still worth a read but only because of the "So Bad it's Good" factor and the "So short you'll barely notice you've lost the weekend" factor...

The incarnations series is creative enough to overcome the authors narcissism... and I particularly enjoy the authors notes sections in most of his books where he does a very good job of explaining the craft of writing trash paperback novels.

Summary... you need to read some of his stuff, and preferable some from a number of different series... but only because it's fun.

--

Also, you need to read Stephen King's "On Writing" it's kinda like a semi-autobiographical book on how he writes while also being a good read if you are interested in writing.

smoth wrote:I am sure some of you may give me crap about it.

however, I read many a conan novel as a kid. I enjoyed the action, adventure and exotic worlds.

Conan is really good as are other Howard stories.

Conan The Barbarian movie is cool too!

The movie didn't have the giant skeleton fight though. That part was pretty cool

I love the Conan series too! I especially like the line that Valaria used after she was dead in order to save Conan's life, "Do you want to live forever?"

Philip K. Dick : UbiK, Clans of Alphan Moon, A Scanner Darkly etc..
I enjoyed to read so many books of that guy.

I recommend strongly Empire of the Ants by Bernard Werber too.
One of my favorite book ever

+1 to Hyperion and Nightwatch series. Enders Game is highly readible in that its fairly light, concise and very good. The majority of the series are dire, tries to be intellectual and fails miserably. Authors I haven't seen mentioned;

Greg Bear
"Forge of God" / "Anvil of the Stars"
"Eon" / "Eternity"
"Darwins Radio" / "Darwins Children"
Darwin series is about different theory of evolution, others are based on far future societies. One of my favourite writers.

Bernard Cornwell
"Azincourt"
When they longbow was the pinnacle of killing technology. Woke up dreaming of getting pierced by dozens of arrows for a couple of days after reading. Great writer if you like historical fiction, particularly the Saxon stories. Though his plots can be predictable they are very well written.

William Gibson
"Neuromancer" / "Count Zero" / "Mona Lisa Overdrive"
This fellow coined the term "cyberspace".

Andrew Smith
"Moon Dust"
Different from other Apollo program books in that it looks more at the characters of the astronauts that went, and why the program happened. Especially liked the description of 72 year old Buzz Aldrin punching a hoax theorist in the face when he asked him to put his palm on the bible and declare he went to the moon.

Anathem- Neal Stephenson
A Game of Thrones - George R.R. Martin
Anansi Boys, Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman
Assassin's Apprentice - Robin Hobb

SpliFF wrote:If you're into sci-fi, especially "space opera" there's three great authors of note:

Peter F Hamilton: "Night's Dawn"

This trilogy is terrible and put me off reading sci-fi. The ending to the 3500 page trilogy is indicated by the third book's title and it's as terrible as you'd expect when a plot is resolved by a god. None of anything else is worth it, especially as the main character is a really embarrasingly bad author stand-in

Kixu wrote: William Gibson
"Neuromancer"

This is the one book that i always know i want to read but for some reason get sidetracked and take other books from the library.

Need to get that asap.

tombom wrote:

SpliFF wrote:If you're into sci-fi, especially "space opera" there's three great authors of note:

Peter F Hamilton: "Night's Dawn"

This trilogy is terrible and put me off reading sci-fi. The ending to the 3500 page trilogy is indicated by the third book's title and it's as terrible as you'd expect when a plot is resolved by a god. None of anything else is worth it, especially as the main character is a really embarrasingly bad author stand-in

I also hate Peter F Hamilton!! High five

tombom wrote:

SpliFF wrote:Peter F Hamilton: "Night's Dawn"

This trilogy is terrible and put me off reading sci-fi. The ending to the 3500 page trilogy is indicated by the third book's title and it's as terrible as you'd expect when a plot is resolved by a god. None of anything else is worth it, especially as the main character is a really embarrasingly bad author stand-in

Well the whole series had a pretty ridiculous premise (dead people go to another continuum then escape through possession, imitate monsters, and have super-powers), however I think it was supposed to be a bit silly and he was pretty brave to attempt a "horror/sci-fi" crossover like that. Religion was a big part of the whole thing (One of the main characters is a Satanist) and they were searching for a god or god-like thing the whole time so I don't see why you found the ending that surprising (and congrats on spoiling it too).

Anyway, Pandora's Box and The Void are more conventional sci-fi (no gods, just lots of awesome tech and new ideas) so maybe that will appeal more. I particularly like that a large part of the story is told from the perspective of an alien with a pathological hatred of all other life. It's like Hitler on steroids with nukes.