The Sword and Laser discussion

I first read Old Man's War after seeing several people writing about reading it in the "What Else Are You Reading?" Forum section and saying how much they enjoyed it.

So I thought maybe people might could post here their recommended "other Scalzi reading" and maybe even a reading order.

I've bought the rest of the books in the OMW series but haven't had the time to read them but I know I'll make the time eventually to read them.

I've read only a few others by Mr. Scalzi.

Agent to the Stars is a fun short book that pokes fun at agents obviously. I listened to the audio book read by Wil Wheaton and enjoyed it.

The God Engines is a novella I think. This has a really interesting premise and I highly recommend it but the tone is much darker than OMW.

Redshirts is a blast for anyone who is a fan of television scifi (specifically classic Star Trek).

Fuzzy Nation is probably the safest reading for people of all ages. A really quick fun read. I bought a copy of this book for my Mom. The audio book is also read by Wil Wheaton.

This is the limit of my Scalzi reading but I'd love to hear what others recommend.

Does Fuzzy Nation assume that you have read Little Fuzzy first? (I have, just wondering how the two are related.)

AndrewP wrote: "Does Fuzzy Nation assume that you have read Little Fuzzy first? (I have, just wondering how the two are related.)"

Nope. I haven't read Little Fuzzy and enjoyed Fuzzy Nation. I believe it is a rewrite of Little Fuzzy and some of the other short stories in that series by Piper.

I've just started Redshirts after tearing through Old Man's War in record (for me) time. I'm loving it so far.

I loved Fuzzy Nation. I went into without knowing anything about it. I think I'm going to be reading a lot more Scalzi after Old Man's War.

Thanks Nick.

FYI, if anyone is interested, Little Fuzzy is in the public domain and there's a pretty decent free audio version on Librivox.

http://librivox.org/little-fuzzy-by-h...

Fuzzy Nation was cute, well read in audio too by Wil Wheaton.

I sense I don't know enough Star Trek to enjoy Redshirts....

Pretty much anything by Scalzi is a decent read. (I say this with the caveat that I was partway through Agent to the Stars when it disappeared during a remodel and haven't gotten to Redshirts.)

I was a little leery of Zoe's Tale since it pretty much re-told the story of the 3rd OMW book from the kid's perspective, but he pulled it off. I was interested all the way through.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Android's Dream, which is fun in a 70s sci-fi lighthearted style.

The Android's Dream is my favorite Scalzi. It's just so much fun.

Don't forget the serialization of 'The Human Division' (Book 5 of OMW Series) starts on Jan 15, or you can wait until May to read it all in one go.

I've made it up to Zoe's Tale as well, but I'm going to sidetrack it for awhile and dive into 'A Memory of Light'.

I totally hated Fuzzy Nation because I read Little Fuzzy first

Alex wrote: "I totally hated Fuzzy Nation because I read Little Fuzzy first"

I felt the same way.

I read Fuzzy Nation first, and then Little Fuzzy.

I liked the Fuzzies from Fuzzy Nation better. But I liked a lot of the aspects from Little Fuzzy.

In the end, they were two different stories that had jelly fish corpses as treasure.

I went ahead and read Little Fuzzy in anticipation of reading Fuzzy Nation. I have a huge queue of books to read/listen to, but I expect I will enjoy it as Scalzi is one of my favorite authors.

I read Fuzzy Nation first, then Little Fuzzy. I loved both of them but enjoyed Funny Nation more, because it's a bit of an easier read. This is mostly to do with Little Fuzzy being 50 years old.

I found it really interesting to read them back to back as they are quite different takes on the same basic idea.