Action All the Way
Altered Carbon (2002)
Action, body jumping, tasteful sex a cyncial protagonist set in a cyber-punk inspired high technology future. Though been a few years I remmber speeding through and enjoying every page. I recommend the two sequals as must read.
Altered Carbon is a hardboiled cyberpunk science fiction novel by Richard K. Morgan. Set some five hundred years in the future in a universe in which the United Nations Protectorate oversees a number of extrasolar planets settled by human beings, it features protagonist Takeshi Kovacs. Kovacs is a former United Nations Envoy and a native of Harlan’s World, a planet settled by a Japanese keiretsu with Eastern European labour. Wikipedia
Close to Literary as I’ve come
Hyperion (1989)
Another novel that invoked within me the one more page up all night expereince. Only a writer with Dan Simmons skill could create a science fiction story that includes a reincarnation of John Keats (18th centuary english romantic poet) while having the story remain engaging. If you have not enjoyed Hyperion go buy it now and the sequal you won’t want to wait.
Hyperion is a Hugo Award-winning 1989 science fiction novel by American writer Dan Simmons. It is the first book of his Hyperion Cantos, and is the only book in it to extensively employ the literary device of the frame story. The plot of the novel features multiple time-lines and characters. This book is succeeded by the 1990 science fiction novel The Fall of Hyperion of the same writer. Wikipedia
Tickles my Funny Bone
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979)
My first comedy and one I’m not sure will ever be exceeded. Too many of my friends and family have only experiencing the distilled narrative though the 2005 film adaption (I loved the movies visuals). I think everyone should read Adam’s once in their life and they too might understand the magic of 42.
The various versions follow the same basic plot but they are in many places mutually contradictory, as Adams rewrote the story substantially for each new adaptation. Throughout all versions, the series follows the adventures of Arthur Dent, a hapless Englishman, although the story also follows the adventure of other major characters: Ford Prefect, who named himself after the Ford Prefect car to blend in with what was assumed to be the dominant life form, automobiles, is an alien from a small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse and a researcher for the eponymous guidebook; Zaphod Beeblebrox, Ford’s semi-cousin and the Galactic President; the depressed robot Marvin the Paranoid Android; and Trillian, formerly known as Tricia McMillan, a woman Arthur once met at a party in Islington and the only other human survivor of Earth’s destruction. Wikipedia
Invent a New Genre
Neuromancer (1984)
I will have to quote wikipedia seminal work in the cyberpunk genre, I only found this novel in 2006 and have since read all 3 in the trilogy as well as his later Bridge Trilogy and the Blue Ant Trilogy.
My favourite gibson quote In fact, I've never really been very interested in computers themselves. I don't watch them; I watch how people behave around them.
Go read now but don’t expect an easy time it will take effort but you will be rewarded.
Neuromancer is a 1984 novel by William Gibson, a seminal work in the cyberpunk genre and the first winner of the science-fiction “triple crown” — the Nebula Award, the Philip K. Dick Award, and the Hugo Award. It was Gibson’s debut novel and the beginning of the Sprawl trilogy. The novel tells the story of a washed-up computer hacker hired by a mysterious employer to pull off the ultimate hack. Wikipedia
Boy with Magic Sword
The Sword of Truth - Wizard’s First Rule (2001)
Goodkind is as a proponent of Ayn Rand’s philosophical approach of Objectivism and while I don’t subscribe to the tentants I enjoyed reading a story about a boy with magic sword and a narrative which is an exposition of Goodkind’s beliefs.
I was surprised to find that the narratives resolution came throught an act of reason and not an act of violence. I was expecing the antagonist to be run thought with the magic sword.
Wizard’s First Rule, written by Terry Goodkind, is the bestselling first book in the epic fantasy series The Sword of Truth. Published by Tor Books, it was released on August 15, 1994 in hardcover, and in paperback on July 15, 1997. The book also was re-released with new cover artwork by Keith Parkinson in paperback on June 23, 2001. The novel was adapted to television in the 2008 television series Legend of the Seeker. Goodkind had no trouble selling his first book to a publisher. “I’m sort of the exception that proves the rule,” he says. “I wanted to be represented by the best agent in the country and I wrote him a letter. He asked to see the book and he liked it. He showed it to a number of publishers. Three of them had an auction. Ten weeks after I’d written ‘The End’ it sold for a record price ($275,000),” the most money ever paid for a fantasy novel by a first time author. Wikipedia
World building on Grand Scale
Dune (1965)
An exercise in world building Dune. This will continue to be a classic and IMOP should be taught in schools. My own kids (one day who knows) will have a copy under the christmas tree.
Dune is a 1965 science fiction novel by Frank Herbert. It won the Hugo Award in 1966, and the inaugural Nebula Award for Best Novel. Dune is frequently cited as the world’s best-selling science fiction novel and was the start of the Dune saga.
Set in the far future amidst a feudal interstellar society in which noble houses, in control of individual planets, owe allegiance to the imperial House Corrino, Dune tells the story of young Paul Atreides, the heir apparent to Duke Leto Atreides as his family accepts control of the desert planet Arrakis, the only source of the “spice” melange. Melange is the most important and valuable substance in the universe, increasing Arrakis’s value as a fief. The story explores the multi-layered interactions of politics, religion, ecology, technology, and human emotion, as the forces of the empire confront each other in a struggle for the control of Arrakis and its “spice”. Wikipedia
Better Late then Never
The Accidental Time Machine (2008)
The best time travel narrative i’ve enjoyed is writtern by Joe Haldeman author of The Forever War this is a quick but satisfying story of one man’s accidential trip into the future. This novel combines two themes of Religion and Science and our relationship with technology using the travel metaphore to show that neither extreme is perfect.
The Accidental Time Machine is a science-fiction novel by Joe Haldeman that was published in 2007. The novel was a finalist for the Nebula Award in 2007,and the Locus Award in 2008
Matthew Fuller, a research assistant at MIT, accidentally invents a time machine while attempting to construct a calibrator to measure the relationships between gravity and light. Unfortunately, it will only travel forward, to the future, in ever-increasing intervals of 12x. On the fifth jump, which sends him forward a few months, he gets arrested for the perceived murder of a drug dealer who actually had a heart attack when he witnessed Matt disappear in his time machine. He is shortly bailed out by someone who can only be from the future and is left a note urging him to depart in the time machine quickly. Wikipedia