Picture this, you’re at a Barnes and Noble, Borders (If they still exist), or any other place they sell or rent books, and in front of you is a wall of science fiction novels. The display looks like a riot, with nondescript older books from some guy named Heinlein mixed in with new flashy books. […]

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I’ve always believed in putting your best foot forward when entering a discussion, and in my mind, that puts Foundation by Isaac Asimov as my first recommended series. While the name Foundation seems a rather bland name, the concepts and ideas put forth by Asimov over three decades of writing have influenced such icons as […]

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On the topic of the old masters of science fiction, if I didn’t mention Robert Heinlein, I would be doing you a disservice.  Unlike Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series, each of Heinlein’s novels is a single world unto itself, with core of the book tied to a few philosophical ideas meant to encourage debate in the […]

Read more "Recommendation #2: The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress"

As a forewarning, my next recommendation is a card carrying member of the odd and confusing, “hard sci-fi” subgenre. However, even if you are wary of reading about Planck energy, AI, ripples in space-time, along with some sociopathic cyborgs, the novel Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds is a worthwhile read. Revelation Space’s plot itself is […]

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And now for something completely different. For those who would rather not delve to deeply into the oddities of “hard” science fiction, the novel Leviathan Wakes is like a written version of an action packed TV show. (Coincidentally, it has been made into an amazing TV series, airing every Wednesday night on SyFy.) Written by […]

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Compared to the novels I have previously recommended, The Forever War is a bit different. Written in 1974 by Joe Haldeman, this novel is as much a story about Vietnam as it is about interstellar war. Set in 1997, Humanity has expanded beyond the solar system by way of “collapsars”, a type of wormhole system […]

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In terms of sci-fi, Star Wars is probably the one series anyone can recognize. This is both a blessing, because there is a ton of Star Wars novels today, and curse, since most of them are not really all that good. However, back in the early 1990’s there were not many Star Wars novels at […]

Read more "Recommendation #6: Star Wars: X-Wing Rogue Squadron"

In my last review, I mentioned that during the Star Wars publishing craze of the 1990s, there were two major stand out series that were worth reading. The first was X-Wing: Rogue Squadron, which I have already reviewed, and the second is Timothy Zahn’s outstanding Thrawn trilogy. Taking place several years after Return of the […]

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When I first heard of Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, I wasn’t to sure what to think. A book about a child genius tasked with saving humanity? That sounds like a novel for elementary school, not a serious science fiction novel.  Yet, after I was informed that this novel had somehow ended up on […]

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For my last two recommendations, I am reviewing two of the most intense novels that I have ever read, Hyperion and its sequel, The Fall of Hyperion. Originally published in 1989 by Dan Simmons, Hyperion is one of those novels that you read once, and then wish you can forget it, just so you can […]

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