Science Fiction.

[mad_mick]

Not me, I have learned friends who keep me safe from these scams

I'm grinding (Teeth involved) through book 8 to find out how it ends.... no, I'm not into any submissive sex action... I just like to finish the job.

As a podcast, Try MarsCorp.... and see what Perseverence is going to do. feel sorry for E, L, Hobb.

 

[kimmi851]

Dodgy sci fi through to urban fantasy and on to classic sci fi (my bedroom so no Douglas Adams as my daughter made it very clear that those are either downstairs or in her bedroom and it is non negotiable)

Mysticism through history and Roman translations to military history and autobiography

Humour/military humour through to history

I think this is a perfectly reasonable ranking system and obvious to anyone looking. if only I didn't keep reordering them every time I hit the lovely little second hand bookshop and find myself out of shelf space again

 

[mad_mick]

View attachment 552845
Dodgy sci fi through to urban fantasy and on to classic sci fi (my bedroom so no Douglas Adams as my daughter made it very clear that those are either downstairs or in her bedroom and it is non negotiable)
View attachment 552851
Mysticism through history and Roman translations to military history and autobiography

View attachment 552853
Humour/military humour through to history

I think this is a perfectly reasonable ranking system and obvious to anyone looking. if only I didn't keep reordering them every time I hit the lovely little second hand bookshop and find myself out of shelf space again

My mate and me made a point of visiting "Dark they were and Golden eyed", when we were in Soho, he was on their mailing list..... we did a repeat visit a few years later to Forbidden Planet in Denmark street... he stopped a P because he couldn't carry anymore books..... 2 days later he stopped at Q because he couldn't carry any more books,

He has a curse.. he remembers everything, he needs to read new stuff all the time.... I, on the other hand, am becoming senile so an old book can be re-read as new as if I was 14....... looking forward to watching Star Wars as if it was my first time!

 

[Whiskybreath]

"Dark they were and Golden eyed"

Visited many times in my youth; it was a fabulous shop, much missed.

 

[mad_mick]

Visited many times in my youth; it was a fabulous shop, much missed.

Excellent X 2. I'm sure he would agree. If you want a sane mad Sci-fi guy (It's an oxymoron.... we know) that read all the books and would make Sheldon Cooper in this matter sound very un-educated....................is probably hand delivering your mail somewhere around the Nottingham area at this moment.

 

[Gravelbelly]

Visited many times in my youth; it was a fabulous shop, much missed.

On the subject of good shops, there's a shoutout to Transreal in Edinburgh (on Candlemaker row, just down from Greyfriars Bobby). I've been buying books from the owner since he worked at the SF Bookshop on West Crosscauseway, then Teviot Place...

And seeing as everyone else is showing off bookshelves (I'd need to tidy the room before doing a wide-angle picture, youngest uses it for school and it's a tip...). Everything from hard SF to Fantasy (with chunks of nonfiction and plain old drama), golden age to modern on the age spectrum, Pournelle to Macleod on the political spectrum.

 

[alfred_the_great]

To return to Hamilton - I can’t help but feel he rather jumped the shark with the Void series.

and there’s no way I’m taking photos of my pile bookshelves

 

[Whining Civvy]

On the subject of good shops, there's a shoutout to Transreal in Edinburgh (on Candlemaker row, just down from Greyfriars Bobby). I've been buying books from the owner since he worked at the SF Bookshop on West Crosscauseway, then Teviot Place...

And seeing as everyone else is showing off bookshelves

View attachment 553544

Would you mind telling me which charity shop your books will be donated to when you kark it?

 

[TamH70]

Seeing as how this thread is about science fiction, here's every single popular science fiction show ever televised:


"Vegetarian Space Socialists who are always right". Too true.

 

[Cable_Ties]

It's spooky how I appear to share 50% of my collection with you bunch of reprobates.

 

[Whiskybreath]

It's spooky how I appear to share 50% of my collection with you bunch of reprobates.

Ditto. Pure escapism from the dreary, tedious daily round, over many years, of course. Getting lost in Vance's Dying Earth is preferable to doing the washing up.

 

[Themanwho]

On the subject of good shops, there's a shoutout to Transreal in Edinburgh (on Candlemaker row, just down from Greyfriars Bobby). I've been buying books from the owner since he worked at the SF Bookshop on West Crosscauseway, then Teviot Place...

And seeing as everyone else is showing off bookshelves (I'd need to tidy the room before doing a wide-angle picture, youngest uses it for school and it's a tip...). Everything from hard SF to Fantasy (with chunks of nonfiction and plain old drama), golden age to modern on the age spectrum, Pournelle to Macleod on the political spectrum.

View attachment 553544

Ah "Footfall", by Niven & Pournelle. Absolutely brilliant, with a Heinlein cameo, along with a nuclear bomb-propelled battleship and a missile armed X15 killing alien elephants in space. Proper SF!

Although how you can bear to read more than one Gerald Seymour pot boiler warmer at a tepid temperature, let alone hang on to them, I have no idea...

 

[Cable_Ties]

Speaking of things Niven, I have a 70s copy of Inconstant Moon "borrowed" from my High School library when I left in 1988.

I must have read the various short stories dozens of times each.

Any other nominations for unfeasibly good sci-fi books that you always come back to?

 

[Themanwho]

Speaking of things Niven, I have a 70s copy of Inconstant Moon "borrowed" from my High School library when I left in 1988.

I must have read the various short stories dozens of times each.

Any other nominations for unfeasibly good sci-fi books that you always come back to?

Heinlein's Starship Troopers, (not the movie despite the co-ed showers). One of the reasons I ended up in the Army.

 

[tgo]

Heinlein's Starship Troopers, (not the movie despite the co-ed showers). One of the reasons I ended up in the Army.

Man, I bet you were pissed when you didn't get a power armour suit.

 

[Cable_Ties]

Heinlein's Starship Troopers, (not the movie despite the co-ed showers). One of the reasons I ended up in the Army.

Good call. Haldeman's The Forever War is in a similar vein but not quite the same oomph.

 

[Themanwho]

Man, I bet you were pissed when you didn't get a power armour suit.

Better than that, I got 58 pattern webbing and a tin pisser.

 

[Cable_Ties]

For some reason, The Saga Of The Exiles and the Mileu Trilogy are well-worn and dog-eared old favourites also.

 

[Whiskybreath]

Speaking of things Niven, I have a 70s copy of Inconstant Moon "borrowed" from my High School library when I left in 1988.

I must have read the various short stories dozens of times each.

Any other nominations for unfeasibly good sci-fi books that you always come back to?

'Tales of the Dying Earth' by Jack Vance. Join the cult.
'Black Easter/The Day after Judgement', James Blish.
'Ringworld', Larry Niven.

Those three/four books are the starting points (although Niven's previous work was groundbreaking long before Ringworld) to huge rafts of great SF. Other authors have been allowed to enter Vance's and Nivens's worlds, and have also written some tremendous tales.

 

[Cable_Ties]

Might I suggest that The Voyage Of The Space Beagle by AE Van Vogt has influenced more than its share of sci-fi....especially the demonic Ixtl?