Fhc Book Club

I'm looking for a good book to read, probably something in the survival or scifri genre. Recent books I've really enjoyed include From the Earth to the Moon and The Castaways, both by Jules Verne, and The Martian by Andy Weir.

 

Have you read "One Second After"? Its decent survival fiction, and really makes you think.

Probably not your cup o' tea, but CS Lewis' Space Trilogy, especially the third one, are truly prescient, as is Lord of The World by Robert Hugh Benson.

 

I will take a look at these Brian.

 

I am a voracious SciFi reader... What do you like? Light adventure stories space operas like star wars, or real deep scientific reads. Give me an idea and I'll reccomend some authors

 

I prefer two types: light hearted, tongue in cheek and also hard science fiction.

 

If you want hard...

Stephen Baxter - Probably one of the best hard scifi authors currently writing. The Xelee series (The Ring, etc) and others are very good. About a universe where aliens from alternate dimensions table out across all of history to the distant future. Watch out though some of Baxters other work is depressing, he uses a lot of end of the world/doomsday themes.

Arthur C. Clark- I actually never read 2001 but a lot of his other stuff. Rama series is very good hard scifi. Childhoods End is an all time classic and quick read.

Frank Herbert- "Dune" is another all time classic for a reason, and is a fairly easy read. the 5 follow on books get very deep though and are a bit hard to get into. His son wrote another dozen or so sequels and prequels so you can read that universe for years.

Larry Niven - Ringwold... a story about discovered an artifically created ring planet. Very unusual writing style that takes getting used to.


Robert A. Heinlein - I advent read much of his work but he is considered one of the must read classic SciFi authors along with Clarke and Asimov.



A couple of authors I call a mix as they use hard science but are light and easy to read:

Ben Bova (current) has a series called the grand tour that follows humans exploring hte solar system in the near future. Hsi writing has gone downhill recently but his earlier books in the serien (Asteroid Wars, mars, Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, etc) are great and fairly quick reads. He gets criticised sometimes for shallow characters

Issac Asimov - I love Asimov, some dont. His Robot And Foundation books are worth the read for anyone interested in scifi, but he doesn't use much hard science. Which in a way helps because some of those books through written in the 50s and 60s have held up quite well. He also gets criticised for rather shallow character development.


lighter reads:

Orson Scott Card - Enders Game series. The first is practically a kids adventure novel, but later books in the series get a bit more substantial. light on the science but a good story. His more recent books have gone downhill and his popularity has waned as he has become very political.



There are many many more good scifi authors... there are just a few I can think of right now that I have read extensively.

 

No Ray Bradbury? Where's the Martian Chronicles?

I read just about everything that was out there in the sci fi realm in middle school and high school but haven't read much sci if since college. Most of my leisure reading now is Catholic novels and historical fiction.

I did read a really interesting novel recently. "Voyage to Alpha Centauri" is by an acclaimed Catholic novelist named Michael D. O'Brien. It's a cross between sci fi and Christian fiction that was exceptionally well done (if you don't mind Christian elements in your sci fi.)

 

Definitely read A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller. It's one of the classic sci fi post apocalyptic novels.

 

http://entertainment.time.com/2010/06/08/top-10-post-apocalyptic-books/slide/all/

 

I'm saddened that Richard Matheson didn't make that list.

 

For real life survival read Endurance, the story about Shackelton's ill fated attempt to traverse Antartica. And if you have read that book look for Shackelton's Forgotten Men, which tells the story of the guys who laid out the supplies for him on the other side. They had it pretty bad too.

 

Yeah Bradbury is another good one... and there are so many others. Those are just the ones I could think of that Ive read extensively in the last 10 years or so.

 

Samuel Delaney's Dhalgren is a good read too. It will keep you busy for a few days at least.

 

Haven't gotten to anything on this list yet, just finished The Scarlet Plague by Jack London and am working through The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster. Both are strangely prophetic.

 

How about The Stand by Stephen King?

I don't read much, but when I do it's always a king book. The man isn't always agreeable to me, but he's a good writer

 

I read that one when I was a kid. I always preferred his short stories. Jerusalem's Lot was probably my fav.

 

Me too, I love the short story collections. Night shift is probably my favorite

 

Yeah, me too. Read it from cover to cover. The Man Who Loved Flowers was another corker in that set!

 

Good ending

 

Survival?...it would have to be American Sniper..Chris Kyle's book..RIP