The Sword and Laser discussion

** Sorry I tried to put this in General, not sure how it got here!!**

Hello all,

I'm new so please only beat me lightly. ^.^

I'm about to finish The Windup Girl and am looking for my next book. I'm hoping that someone(s) will have a few great suggestions. Typically I find myself preferring SciFi (not syfy darn it!) that generally involves a dystopian future. In the last 6 months I have read:
Snowcrash
Neuromancer
Enders Game
Broken Angels
Woken Furries
Altered Carbon
Th1rte3en
Daemon
Freedom


I really liked the Richard K Morgan and Daniel Suarez books. I am finding The Windup Girl ok, but nothing amazing, I'm only about 1/2 through though.

I hope someone with similar tastes as me can give me a few new reads to load onto my Kindle.

Thanks!!!!! ^.^

Have you tried any Philip K. Dick? All of his books that I know of have dystopia futures? Just look at the movies that have been made out of his novels and short stories, like Paycheck, A Scanner Darkly, Blade Runner, Total Recall, The Adjustment Bureau, Next, and Minority Report.

Thanks, not sure how I left them off my list. I have read a few of those you mentioned. I'll add the others to my list.

You may want to try searching Goodreads bookshelves for dystopia and post-apocalyptic and see what you find on other people's shelves.

http://www.goodreads.com/shelf

KOP by Warren Hammond is set in a world similar to that of Bladerunner and populated with characters that feel like they were created by Dashiell Hammett. Quick and enjoyable scifi crime read.

I'll check out the link and the authors mentioned. Thanks everyone.

I always finding myself evangelizing Hyperion. Anyone with even a passing interest in sci-fi should read this book.

Nevan wrote: "I always finding myself evangelizing Hyperion. Anyone with even a passing interest in sci-fi should read this book."

I agree. But it should be noted it's unsatisfying as a stand-alone book. I found that the hard way.

I agree. But it should be noted it's unsatisfying as a stand-alone book. I found that out the hard way."

That's how I lure people into reading the Cantos; I suppose I'm a sort of literary drug-dealer, providing one book with full knowledge that it's impossible to stop once you've begun!

Kevin wrote: "Have you tried any Philip K. Dick? All of his books that I know of have dystopia futures? Just look at the movies that have been made out of his novels and short stories, like Paycheck, A Scanner D..."

I would recommend Ubik or The Man in the High Castle. Those are my two favorites.

I don't want to be a newb or anything, but if you want to pimp books out, I recommend Feed by Mira Grant. Near-future, 20 years after the zombie apocalypse and how social media and film saved us from a big media coverup before it was too late.

Im 1/2 thru Feed myself. More zombies than scifi, but funny and cool, not sure its in the vein Keith is looking for tho. Here are my Pics
A Fire upon the Deep the whole galaxy is on the internet, so just imagine the flame wars that break out when a malevloent godlike intelligence starts taking over. This novel present the idea that space is composed of zones that allow different levels of order and thought, so that if u were in one zone and flew to another suddenly u could be capable of godlike intelligence. It also features a great alien composed of several doglike creatures that form a pack intelligence.
Iron Sunrise
Earth Brin's view of the near future when oops a black hole scientists are working with gets loose into the earth core, and it turns out there is another one already there...
Cryptonomicon the longest book you will ever wish was longer
i enjoyed the Hyperion saga, but im not sure the payoff was worth slogging thru all that catholic crap

Halbot42 wrote: "Cryptonomicon the longest book you will ever wish was longer"

Nice.

a good sci-fi read is Transfigured by Chris West, it is available on the Amazon Kindle store for $2.99 so not much and throughly enjoyable!

Robopocalypse is a fantastic book. It is exactly what the title says it is: Robot Apocalypse.

I'd suggest China Miéville, particularly Perdido Street Station.

yeah i really cant say enough good things about Perdido. Great book, really sticks to your mental ribs.

Nevan wrote: That's how I lure people into reading the Cantos..

Okay Mr. Dealer, you have me curious. What are the Cantos?

Hyperion Cantos, four books, great monster, waaayyyy too much future catholicism, think Canticle for Leibowitz or Anathem level of church minutae. But every 100 or so pages an awesome action sequence

Oh, ok. I actually have Hyperion in audiobook form, that I was just about to start listening to. Now I can't wait.

Once it's released, try Ready Player One. Dystopian near future where everyone works and plays in a virtual world, with plenty of 1970s and 1980s pop-culture references.

Speaking of Dan Simmons, looking forward to his return to science fiction, Flashback .

(Based on the novella from Lovedeath.)

The Eye of the Crystal Ball by T.P.Boje The Eye of the Crystal Ball

it is really worth reading.

Aeryn98 wrote: ..
Okay Mr. Dealer, you have me curious. What are the Cantos?"

I'm glad that you're going to experience the Cantos! A word of warning, though: even though it's one of my favorite stories of all time, it starts slowly. Some of the concepts are pretty advanced — I certainly had to re-read quite a bit of the first two books!

Thanks, Tamahome, for mentioning Flashback; I'll go to a bookshop and pick that up tomorrow. July is going to pass in a flurry of pages. Dan Simmons cranking out some sci-fi and George R.R. Martin delivering another ASoIaF title? Yes, please! This is going to be the quintessential 'Sword and Laser' month for me!

Oh, and a thanks to Random for recommending The Man in the High Castle; I absolutely loved it.

Oh crap, Flashback is out.

Tamahome wrote: "Oh crap, Flashback is out."

I downloaded it from Audible the day it came out. I'll listen to it as soon as I'm done listening to Last Call by Tim Powers. I did listen to about 5-10 minutes of Flashback and I'm hoping I can get past the narrator. He seems to be pronouncing some of the Japanese words a bit strangely.

I read the 1st couple chapters. Seems good. Definitely 'rated R'. Oh, the audiobook has multiple narrators.

Hi Keith,
Give Leviathan Wakes a look. I thought it was incredibly well written.

Cheers

Tamahome wrote: "I read the 1st couple chapters. Seems good. Definitely 'rated R'. Oh, the audiobook has multiple narrators."

I finished the first of the 3 part download last night. It's reminding me a lot of Robert J. Sawyer's Rollback in that Simmon's characters keep remembering their "history", which happens to be our current times. (One character was born 3 years before me.) It's also reminding me a lot of the Heinlein I've read. The characters are constantly lecturing each other about the past and it's impact. There's a really good detective story in here, but it involves having to wade through a lot of stuff.

I've read about 100 pages, and it's dramatic, but, doesn't seem very scifi to me.

I've read most of the books in your list. I see you haven't mentioned Robert J. Sawyer's WWW trilogy, which has some themes similar to Daemon (which is in your list), albeit a much lighter tone since it's also a sort of coming-of-age story about a teenage girl (and could be considered anti-dystopian, I suppose). Robopocalypse is another one I've recently read which has some elements straight out of the Daemon story (the killer automobiles, for one thing), and as the name suggests, is post-apocalyptic of a sort. For some reason, I also have John Twelve Hawks' Fourth Realm series in my head as similar to these, although there was certainly a more mystical bent than usual to all of the cyberpunk in his stories.

Grab ebook version of The Electric Church by Jeff Somers for $1.99

Nice. Just last night I had an itch for something in the vein of a Daniel Suarez's book. It's funny though, because I don't really think of his world as a dystopia.

Anyone read Mark Russinovich's Zero Day? I’m curious if it’s worth a read? It seems to be getting middling reviews. For some reason I like the idea of someone who actually is behind the veil of technology writing a book.

I just finished both of the Daniel Suarez books and they're absolutely great but i agree with Andrew, Dystopian they are not.

I found them scarily uplifting considering how much they utilised killed sword wielding motorcycles.

Thanks for all the suggestions though, definitely going to look into them.

I realized i was feeling the same way about halfway through Freedom when i began preferring the Daemon economy to the real one, imagine if reputation mattered to NewsCorpse or BP

Halbot42 wrote: "I realized i was feeling the same way about halfway through Freedom when i began preferring the Daemon economy to the real one, imagine if reputation mattered to NewsCorpse or BP"

I think its more telling of my deep seated psychosis that i was for the Daemon for most of Daemon as well. It just felt that much more genuine.

would have been nice if dude had run his story game past an actual gamer or two tho. Ive played every fps out there for 15 years now and have never seen one that rewards you for friendly fire, love that reputation based economy. that + maker bot and we are on the way

There were a few parts like that where it seemed like Suarez stretched the credulity of some of the concepts but all in all it was great.

The reputation scores and the idea of quests was brilliant. It would be incredibly interesting to see it applied to a real life situation.

Halbot42 wrote: "Ive played every fps out there for 15 years now"

Thats quite a statement when MobyGames lists 2213 FPS and you've played every one. You have more free time than I do. :)

ok how bout every fps that looked any good? still gotta be in the hundreds when i start counting with doom:)

Halbot42 wrote: "ok how bout every fps that looked any good? still gotta be in the hundreds when i start counting with doom:)"

Thought you might have missed some gems like Mortyr ... but then I've played 10-20% of all FPS doesn't have the same authority does it ;-)

i think the worst of the turds i did play was redneck rampage, think an even more infantile duke nukem without Postal's redeeming social commentary

Halbot42 wrote: "i think the worst of the turds i did play was redneck rampage, think an even more infantile duke nukem without Postal's redeeming social commentary "

Yeah I played it (well some of it). You're not half wrong. From memory I think some of the guys there even ended up at Treyarch of COD fame(?). Anyway I think we're diverting from the main topic. I did take your point, I just thought your statement may have been a little optimistic :-)