IMO, one of the absolute BEST science-fiction books is “Battlefield Earth” by L. Ron Hubbard. It is a total epic adventure. Very long too. Never a dull moment either. Too bad all of his other books sucked big one.
He’s not!?! I must have missed the notice (I only get SE irregularly).
Damn. One of those “cool factoids that can be used to impress friends” has been taken from me. Oh well.
Thanks for the info. They’re both great writers in any case.
Fenris
Fenris:
Not only that, but the “Federick J. Pohl” who wrote “Prince Henry Sinclair” and other books on pre-Columbian voyages is not the same as Fred Pohl the science fiction writer.
This seems to be a problem with writers – its like they didn’t budget enough names. There were TWO famous writers named “Winston Churchill”, and the only one we remember today – the politician – was a lot less well-known when the other was active.
CalMeacham:
I’d never heard of Fredrick J. Pohl, so I was never confused by them 
However…
If you tell me that my big used book find today was wrong, I’m not gonna be happy.
I’m a huge Theodore Sturgeon fan and, at a used bookstore, I found two Westerns (The Rare Breed and The King and Four Queens) and a crime novel (Some of Your Blood) by Theodore Sturgeon. They’d better be the same guy…
Fenris
Definitely the 12 volume Timewars series by Simon Hawke. As the storyline progresses, the plot becomes quite convoluted (always a good sign in time travel stories). And in the course of their adventures, the heroes meet various characters from legend and history (Ivanhoe, Robin Hood, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, the Scarlet Pimpernel).
RealityChuck: Good to hear 
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Eulalia: I’m a fan of Blaylock as well . In fact I’ve always self-identified quite a bit with the protagonist of The Last Coin - Which is probably a far too revealing comment about my personality 
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CalMeachum: Did both of the Frederik Pohl’s write sf? I’ve always wondered at Gateway and The Space Merchants being by the same fellow ( and yes I realize the second was co-written - But it still seemed such a stylistically different work ).
- Tamerlane
Has anyone read any of Ian M. Banks’ Culture novels?
The Player of Games, Consider Phlebas, Excession, etc… They take place in a future where humans are allied with AI’s, known as Minds (whose physical bodies can range from tiny drones to immense – and hilariously named – ships), in a peculiar culture called, well… the Culture which is, apparently, the most vigorous galactic civilization of its time. The books explore the behaviour of the Culture’s and/or its citizens towards themselves and other civilizations.
Well, I ain’t CalMeachum(who, by the way, has my vote for best sig line ever), but I can tell you that it was indeed the same Frederik Pohl who wrote both Gateway and (with ?? Kornbluth) The Space Merchants.
Putting the matter of collaboration aside, I’d say that Pohl’s stylistic difference in those two works is explained by them being written between fifteen to thirty years apart… I don’t have the books in front of me, so I can’t tell you the exact pulication dates.
I think they’re wonderful and promote them every chance I get, having discovered them while living in Europe. Unfortunatly, last I checked, most of these are out of print in the USA, which is a crying shame…
Only one of the Fred Pohls wrote sf – and, as has been pointed out, he produced both Gateway and(in collaboration with the late C.M. Kornbluth)"The Space Merchants. His style has varied over the years, and I think he got better. You might want to check out “The Merchant’s War”, the sequel to The Space Merchants, written by Pohl alone after Kornbluth’s death to compare styles.
I don’t know if the Sturgeon who wrote the westerns is the same as the sf author, although it wouldn’t surprise me. Fredric Brown wrote sf, fantasy, and superb mysteries with equal ability. You might want to look up Sturgeon’s bio in Nichols’ “Encyclopedia of SF” or some other source.
Thanks for the compliment on my sig. It’s my own. But if you want stuff in similar styles you might want to have a look at http://www.NancyButtons.com or http://www.perspicuity.com . I see their stuff at a lot of sf cons, and it appeals to my warped sense of humor.
I won’t have access to my copy of the Encyclopedia until tonight, but I’ll check and post, just as an FYI for anyone interested.
As long as we’re talking about SF writers who’ve done mysteries, I recently read Boucher’s Rocket To The Morgue. Great book and a nice look at some thinly-disguised SF authors. (In my used book haul yesterday, I also picked Sharon McCrumb’s Bimbos of the Death Sun, also a SF mystery. It’ll be interesting to compare)
Fenris
Fenris:
“Bimbos of the Death Sun” is GREAT, as others on this board have attested. If you can, get the sequel – “Zombies of the Gene Pool”.
Canticle for Lebowitz is definitly excellent.
Earth Abides is also a very good post-apocolyptic work.
For magic science fiction, you can’t go wrong with R. Garrett’s Lord D’Arcy series. Locked room mysteries where magic is science.
Glen Cook’s Garrett mysteries are also enjoyable, think Nero Wolfe where Nero Wolfe is a ghost.
Daniel Hoods Fanuilh series is enjoyable, do not think it is a copy of Brust because it involves a minature dragon familiar.
H.Beam Pipers Lord Kalvin of Otherwhen is probably the best treatment of the multiple realities theme.
I still love Asimov’s “FOUNDATION” series. The whole concept of hari Seldon’s “Psychohistory” always intrigued me-the idea that the future could be predicted from calculations is a great theme. Anyway, the really interesting thing was how the "simulacrum’ of hari Seldon would emerge at critical times in the future, to offer comfort to the people present. It is almost as if Asimov had treated Seldon as an old-testament prophet.
I’d love to see a movie version of “Foundation”!
I love alternate present or near-present storylines.
A prime example of this would be the sadly ended Wild Cards series, in which an alien virus afflicts Earth in the late 1940s, killing many people and mutating others into jokers (gross deformities) or aces (superpowers). The books are about how the United States deals with the resultant social, cultural, and political implications. It reads like funny, violent, comic book verite–kind of a brightly colored Watchmen. Fantastic.
Also in this vein is Harry Turtledove’s The Guns of the South, which imagines a band of Afrikaan separatists from the early 21st century traveling back to 1862 (I think it’s '62) to supply Robert E. Lee with AK-47s. Wonderfully realized, and apparently as realistice as can be expected from such a premise–James McPherson, for one, has commented on the accuracy of historical detail.
The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman(?) Story of inter-galactic warfare that spans centuries, told by one unlucky soldier who, thanks to frequent flying at light-speed, gets to see the war from end to end. Great stuff; funny as hell.
Fenris:
If you like magic/science stories may I recommend the Flux and Anchor series by Jack L. Chalker
Featherlou:
I recently read an “end of the world” story called Cradle of Saturn by James P. Hogan that was really good.
If you like ‘scientific magic’ stories, Niven has written a LOT of them that are very good, the most recent being ‘The Burning City’.
Read it and loved it. One of my favorites, despite the standard weird treatment of women that Chalker does in his books (Note to Chalker: Come on Jack, how many more times can we watch a woman brainwashed or magically transformed into a sex-crazed animal? Find a new fetish).
Badtz Maru I read the Burning City in hardcover and enjoyed it, but I thought the first half of the book was better.
Fenris
For alternate history stuff, I highly recommend the gaming supplements GURPS Alternate Earths and Alternate Earths II. Each has 6 fully realized alternate histories ranging from the usual suspects (Nazis win WWII, americans lose war for independence) to the outre (Tesla marries JP Morgan’s daughter, major world power the Aztecs). Sure, they’re game supplements, but they make for great reading.