I'm looking for books where characters are exploring the solar system using space ships that are technologically within (or somewhat close to) our capability to build today. Bonus points if those novels are character driven.
posted by Hoenikker
on Jun 14, 2013 -
21 answers
After spending several years reading largely YA, I'd like to read some grown-up secondary world fantasy novels. Persnickety tastes below the fold.
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posted by PhoBWanKenobi
on Apr 30, 2013 -
58 answers
I just read China Mieville's The City and the City and really enjoyed it. I have a long train ride tomorrow and would like to download some more books for the road. Can you recommend some intelligent, literary speculative fiction, including perhaps others by Mieville?
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posted by foxy_hedgehog
on Apr 19, 2013 -
28 answers
Sci-Fi/FantasyFilter: I've just been told that I get to be the first one to teach a brand new Science Fiction & Fantasy elective at my High School. I am building this class from scratch and since the students will be responsible for getting the books themselves, I have pretty much free-reign for my book choices. Great, right? Absolutely! However, I want to expand my initial book search so I wanted to enlist the Hive Mind to help with this initial salvo. More details below the fold.
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posted by ThaBombShelterSmith
on Mar 21, 2013 -
68 answers
As a reader of fiction (especially if you're a devotee of
speculative fiction), how much do you like detailed descriptions and/or lists as part of the story? What if the story switches between detail and expediency?
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posted by batmonkey
on Dec 28, 2012 -
12 answers
Help me find more great sci-fi about ancient aliens / ancient technologies for my favorite 14-year-old avid reader.
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posted by wintersonata9
on Jul 25, 2012 -
30 answers
I'm looking for urban fantasy/sci fi series with romantic components that don't make me want to claw my eyes out.
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posted by jingle
on Dec 23, 2011 -
30 answers
Trying to remember a dystopian sci-fi book, society had the technology to record mental experiences which allowed people to experience good things such as beaches/vacations but also "bad" things such as prostitution/drugs/murder. Anyone know the name of this book?
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posted by tubling
on Aug 29, 2011 -
33 answers
Help me identify a book! My Google-fu wasn't strong enough. Science fiction, part of a trilogy (or more?), published in the last 10 years with three (at least) alien species, one underwater, and a strong ecological theme. Written by a female former bbc war correspondent.
posted by mathtime!
on Aug 2, 2011 -
2 answers
Give your best examples of the SF/ Survivalist/ Wish Fullfillment sub-genre "libertarian engineers do everything better" or "objectivist superman saves history". More specifically ones where someone is the last man on earth/sendt back in time and constructs a free market utopia through sheer smarts and rationality ( with himself on the top of it, of course).
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posted by The Whelk
on Jun 9, 2011 -
28 answers
[YA book filter] I would like to find some YA or easy-to-read adult sci-fi, speculative fiction, or dystopian fiction. Preferably, about the United States or other earthly country, not deep-space intergalactic stuff.
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posted by lockstitch
on Mar 29, 2011 -
37 answers
I'm getting back into reading for pleasure after years of avoiding it during college. I've found fantasy books easy to get back into, but have no idea where to start with sci-fi!
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posted by Logic Sheep
on Feb 20, 2011 -
40 answers
Identify this Y.A. Sci-fi book from the 1980's - a boy learns how to meditate his way to flying.
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posted by dadici
on Jan 19, 2011 -
4 answers
SF book filter: cyberpunk novel in which a virtual-reality programmer discovers a way to make nerve-induction interfaces write thoughts and feelings to the brain, in addition to merely manipulating sensory perceptions. Powers that be do not like, hilarity ensues...
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posted by lordcorvid
on Dec 6, 2010 -
3 answers
Do you know some sort of online database of books where you can make a profile and compile a list of what you've read? (more explanation)
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posted by CelebrenIthil
on Apr 21, 2010 -
11 answers
Help me ID this scifi/fantasy book: humans (and a very young boy) encounter alien telepathic wolf/dog packs! Several parts are told from the wolves' and boy's point of view.
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posted by SarahbytheSea
on Feb 23, 2010 -
7 answers
Back in the 70's/80's, I remember seeing a series of scifi/fantasy books, where the cover art for all the books had a consistent theme of a red/orange sun that figured prominently. What was it?
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posted by nomisxid
on Oct 6, 2009 -
19 answers
Looking for book recs about sci-fi, specifically about gender issues and jetpack-related physics.
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posted by mumble
on Aug 23, 2009 -
27 answers
Want to help remember a book title? 'Course ya do! It's from the 80s and, if I remember correctly, involves some kids that discover a new game at the local arcade. There's a pilot's helmet on top of the machine, and when they try it on and attempt the game they find they can travel through time. I believe the cover was a picture of the machine and the helmet. At one point they use it to break into a research facility or something, but before that I think they go back too far and it's still being built (leading to some fretting about jumping forward in time and ending up halfway through a wall or floor). I know somebody out there can field this one!
posted by Monster_Zero
on Jun 23, 2009 -
2 answers
Science fiction - filter: I used to read and love Dick, Farmer, LeGuin, and others who coupled great writing with directly confronting sex, violence, and societal change. What contemporary authors might I like?
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posted by Forktine
on May 28, 2009 -
40 answers
What books or series spur their own mythology or philosophy? I love getting lost in the world of a book or movie. Past books and series such as "Harry Potter," "The Da Vinci Code," "Lost," "The Matrix" movies, "Buffy" and "Star Wars" come with their own universe - people analyze them, look for mythological/philosophical undertones, solve puzzles and come up with their own theories.
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posted by adverb
on Apr 24, 2009 -
69 answers
Wanted: Science Fiction Books moved by a great central idea such as: Ringworld by Larry Niven or The Forever War by Joe Haldeman.
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posted by MasonDixon
on Mar 25, 2009 -
34 answers
Short Story Askme: I read a short dystopian story many years ago set in a run-down, post apocalyptic future. A queue of people line up on a street to spit at a painting. The painting represents all the problems of the past. It is implied that the painting is The Mona Lisa. What is the story?
posted by bollockovnikov
on Sep 25, 2008 -
2 answers
What are some good sci fi novels/short stories that focus on robots? Difficulty: no Asimov.
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posted by olinerd
on Jul 19, 2008 -
23 answers
WhatWasThatBookFilter: a friend of mine needs help tracking down a fantasy/sci-fi paperback she read back in 1997. Full description below.
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posted by bettafish
on Jun 11, 2008 -
5 answers
Walter Tevis's classic sci-fi novel
The Man Who Fell To Earth was published in 1963. Does anyone know how and why, then, the current edition came to contain a reference to the 1972 Watergate scandal?
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posted by johngoren
on May 23, 2008 -
12 answers
Book-rec-filter time! Looking for sci-fi themed books for a young child. Can you suggest any?
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posted by Janta
on Mar 18, 2008 -
9 answers
I'm trying to make an expansive and widely-varied reading list of time-travel books and stories. Suggestions?
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posted by scarylarry
on Mar 11, 2008 -
43 answers
My girlfriend's mother and I have a real intellectual rapport, in some ways. Recently we've been talking about literature. She's extraordinarily widely read, but only really within the canon. I've been fronting, claiming that genre fiction like sci-fi has plenty of stuff of genuine literary merit in it. She's called my bluff and asked for a recommendation. What would you suggest? I was thinking something strange and ornate like Cordwainer Smith, but am open to advice.
posted by nicolas léonard sadi carnot
on Mar 4, 2008 -
74 answers
In your opinion, who are the best female science fiction authors? What are the best scifi books written by women?
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posted by taz
on Feb 8, 2008 -
106 answers
Looking for the name of a sci-fi book. Man is injected with a serum that causes him to shrink forever, eventually discovering there are universes smaller than atoms.
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posted by Gudlyf
on Feb 7, 2008 -
9 answers
I'm looking for a series of hardback science fiction anthologies I dimly remember from childhood (sometime in the mid 80s). I think it had a one word title with a number, and the series went up to at least number five. I remember two stories in particular...
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posted by Artw
on Jan 13, 2008 -
11 answers
Which famous sci-fi author bet another author that if he wrote the worst book he could, it would become a hit?
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posted by pornucopia
on Mar 21, 2006 -
25 answers
I'm looking for a book of spaceship art I used to look at in Waldenbooks as a kid..
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posted by jockc
on Nov 17, 2005 -
9 answers
I need recommendations for excellent science fiction books, movies, short stories (or anything, really) centered around life, scientific exploration, and/or research in the arctic, antarctica, or similar fictional extreme cold climates.
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posted by aebaxter
on Nov 15, 2005 -
30 answers
