Can any one recommend a good space sci fi book?

[Oliviev]

Looking for a space page turning Sci fi book that has plenty of rich vocabulary and is eloquently written with obsorbing characters. "Rich vocabulary" > the type you need a dictionary as a companion. Blessings!

[xoxos]

hehe *evil* w.s. burroughs "place of dead roads" *evil*


norman spinrad "child of fortune"

scuese me for suggesting finding blake's 7 on youtube

[ravells]

'Dune' is the first one that springs to mind if you want something that gives you good writing and absorbing characters, although it only has a Fog index of 7.9 according to Amazon, so I doubt you will be reaching for your dictionary (depending on you level of vocab of course). It's funny, but for SF set in space although there's a ton of books out there which are very well written and which have great characters, I can't think of a one which has had me reaching for a dictionary more than once or twice.

I would be interested to see if anyone knows an SF novel set in space which has a fog index of 12 or over.

[Coyotemax]

Asimov. 'nuff said
Well most of the writing is pretty accessible. But if you read all the Robot books and Foundation novels (in order) it's a pretty epic journey.

David drake is good (Hammer's Slammers and series)

I'll second Dune and sequels for lots of detail

[waldronate]

Popular books tend not to have lots of big words in them, most likely because people seem to want to enjoy reading their books, not expending a lot of effort studying them like a textbook. http://xkcd.com/483/ sums up a related problem nicely, I think.

For story and characterization, I find the Vor stories by Bujold to be good, as is her Falling Free. For well-written stories with a humanist slant, I like stories by Spider Robinson. I'd have to go visit my local library (half of which is down the hall, half upstairs, and half in the garage) for much more in the way of recommendations, though.

I haven't been overly impressed with Asimov's or Heinlein's characters. They are both excellent authors in the SF genre; their stories are well-done and engaging, but I find their characters a bit flat and 2-dimensional. I also think that Frank Herbert was hitting the hallucinogens just a wee bit too too hard when he wrote Dune, but that may just be personal problems on my part. Then again, I liked the characters in Stasheff's The Warlock in Spite of Himself, so take my recommendations with a pound of salt.

[ravells]

Cool, thanks Waldronate, I might look up some of those. I'm reading 'The Last Ringbearer' at the moment which is clever and funny (if a bit flabby in the middle).

[Datoria]

I'm a fan of Ian M. Banks books though some are more accessible than others. My favourite is Use of Weapons, which has a really unusual narrative structure. I like the Player of Games too. Matter was a bit of a heavier read. I'm pretty sure that's the one with the Shell Worlds (?) which would be a great concept for a map maker It's full of concepts that haven't got great references to real things, so they're difficult to visualise, but that can be the best part.

[Feadel]

Try David Webber. His Honor Harrington books are good and he has several other sci-fi books as well. Path of the Fury is one of my favorites.

[Mateus090985]

Kim Stanley Robinson Mars Trilogy for sure.

[Hai-Etlik]

Try David Webber. His Honor Harrington books are good and he has several other sci-fi books as well. Path of the Fury is one of my favorites.

I enjoy the HH books (well, most of them), but I wouldn't at all call Weber's writing "eloquent" or his characters "engaging". His strength is more in just coming up with lots and lots if interesting details for his settings, and then blowing it all up, with equal attention to detail. He's at his weakest when his characters need to be "real people" and engage in conversation with each other. It's a valid way to go, and like I said, I enjoy the books, but I don't think they match what Oliviev asked for.

The best match among the authors that I read are Douglas Adams (The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy), Iain Banks (The Culture), and Timothy Zahn (The Thrawn Trilogy, Angelmass)

Dropping the space requirement, I'd add Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash, The Diamond Age)