Cult / Sci-Fi books and movies

Ben6899

I have a tendency towards geekness when it comes to books and movies, favouring cult and Sci-Fi offerings. I love the Space Odyssey quadrilogy and the two movies also were well received. I just finished reading PK Dick's "A Scanner Darkly" and bought the DVD yesterday for £3.99 and cannot wait to watch it.

PK Dick's works are just about all brilliant and now I'm reading "The Man In The High Castle" which has started with much promise.

So are there any other Sci-Fi fans in the Cake Stop?

rock_hopper

Recently read a few of PKD books, 'A Scanner Darkly' was one and 'The Man in the High Castle' but his best (that I have read) is 'Ubik', if you've not read that one, put it on your list, a really excellent sci-fi book! Onto Arthur C Clarke at the moment, 'Childhood's End' was very good, 'Rendezvous with Rama' and 'The City and the Stars' are next on my list.

A couple that stood out that I have read recently is 'The Forever War' by Joe Haldeman and 'I am Legend' by Richard Matheson.......far better than the film. Your probably onto it already but the SF Masterworks series has a great list, the one's your reading now are on it.

Sci-fi rocks :-)

Ben6899

I'll watch out for "Ubik". "Rendezvous with Rama" is brilliant and I glanced at "Childhood's End" the other day; looked good.

How about "Do Androids..." by Dick? Brilliant.

rock_hopper

Yea Androids was good, but not as good as Ubik, some people may say different but Ubik is one of the best sci-fi books I have read to date.

A friend gave me Neuromancer by William Gibson a while ago but couldn't get away with the writing style! Any others that you can recommend? Can't believe I haven't read 2001 A Space Odyssey yet!

One Man And His Bike

Frank Herbert's Dune, still one of the best books I've ever read and while people crib about films never living up to the book, the Lynch film is awesome. 8)

racingcondor

More from the SF Masterworks series Cities in Flight is excellent if you don't mind space opera.

Nick Harkaways The Gone-away World is excellent if you want something recent though.

term1te

Somewhat old school, but you can't beat the visionary that was John Wyndham.

stfc1

JG Ballard. All of it.

Ben6899

rock_hopper wrote:

Any others that you can recommend? Can't believe I haven't read 2001 A Space Odyssey yet!

I would read at least the first two Odyssey books; 2001 and 2010. And possibly "The Simulacra" again by Dick. Lots of subplots, that all come together at the end.

rock_hopper

One Man And His Bike wrote:

Frank Herbert's Dune, still one of the best books I've ever read and while people crib about films never living up to the book, the Lynch film is awesome. 8)

Read Dune and found it quite hard going and not as good as most people make out, couldn't really see what all the fuss was about. Personal preference I guess.

mitchell_inman

A vote for Iain M Banks here - just finished his latest "Surface Detail". Love William Gibson too.

Would be good to see films made of quite a few of their books...

Roobsa

One film that isn't strictly sci-fi but it deals with time travel is Primer. It's quite an unknown film but it's incredibly clever. Very low budget with not particularly high production values but it's quite a plausible attempt at time travel. Much more so than any other film I've seen.

It's quite a heavy storyline so I wouldn't recommend watching if you're tired as it'll definitely lose you. Absolutely worth watching if you're interested in that kind of thing though.

jim453

rock_hopper wrote:

One Man And His Bike wrote:

Frank Herbert's Dune, still one of the best books I've ever read and while people crib about films never living up to the book, the Lynch film is awesome. 8)

Read Dune and found it quite hard going and not as good as most people make out, couldn't really see what all the fuss was about. Personal preference I guess.

Got to agree about Dune. Read it when I was about fifteen and it totally blew me away. I remember there being some heavy political chapters but stuck with it to get back to the next coldly scientific description of the planet and it's indigenous people. I was less pleased with the film, too much of an ask to do it justice I think.

Strangely, I never went on to read any of the sequels. Perhaps I should do it now. After re reading the original though.

tebbit

+ 1 William Gibson

also Harry Harrison for the Stainless Steel Rat, Deathworld and Bill the Galactic Hero novels.

SmellTheGlove

Watched "A Scanner Darkly" a couple of days ago (contains a priceless discussion about a stolen bike) I find I'm interested in the whole surveillance thing which was also one of Ballard's big themes but goes wider than sc-fi of course.
Among films of recent years "Moon" is definitely worth looking out for.
Enjoy your Odyssey!

fizz

jim453 wrote:

Strangely, I never went on to read any of the sequels. Perhaps I should do it now. After re reading the original though.

Definately worth while reading the Dune sequels, also theres some prequels as well that are worth reading to IMHO. My favourite series of Sci Fi books.

Some others that I woudl recommend

Spares by Michael Marshall Smith
Altered Carbon by Richard K Morgan

gmb

stfc1 wrote:

JG Ballard. All of it.

Ballard is IMO the best writer of modern times. Pick anything, they are all pure gold.

Ben6899

SmellTheGlove wrote:

Watched "A Scanner Darkly" a couple of days ago (contains a priceless discussion about a stolen bike)...

It's a great scene in the book; outlines how f***ed up the characters are - looking forward to seeing it in the film. The message of the book is a very strong one and I hope that comes across on screen. I think the style of the filming should help.

balthazar

mitchell_inman wrote:

A vote for Iain M Banks here - just finished his latest "Surface Detail". Love William Gibson too.

Would be good to see films made of quite a few of their books...

I agree (about the books). The Culture novels are great fun- though I particularly enjoyed "Matter", and that's unrelated to any other. Whichever- I can't imagine filming them: the casts are vast, and the scope vaster.

nmcgann

See how many you score on this list:

http://scifilists.sffjazz.com/lists_books_rank1.html

I managed 74

Anonymous

Meh, no ta.

afx237vi

Roobsa wrote:

One film that isn't strictly sci-fi but it deals with time travel is Primer. It's quite an unknown film but it's incredibly clever. Very low budget with not particularly high production values but it's quite a plausible attempt at time travel. Much more so than any other film I've seen.

It's quite a heavy storyline so I wouldn't recommend watching if you're tired as it'll definitely lose you. Absolutely worth watching if you're interested in that kind of thing though.

Along similar lines, there's a Spanish film called Timecrimes that offers a "realistic" portrayal of time travel. The plot is a little easier to follow than Primer.

I wasn't keen on either, but I'm not particularly interested in sci fi. I can see how both films would appeal to fans of the genre.

markos1963

Big fan of the 'Rama' series of books, introduced to me by my dad when i was young. I also like Alan Dean Foster books, Finx in Flux and Sentanced to Prism spring to mind.

Clank

nmcgann wrote:

See how many you score on this list:

http://scifilists.sffjazz.com/lists_books_rank1.html

I managed 74

A meagre 11.

No 'This Perfect Day' (Ira Levin). Another book, like 'Brave New World' that inspired an aweful that came after it.

But pleased to see both Startide Rising and The Uplift War in the list.

Clank

markos1963 wrote:

. I also like Alan Dean Foster books, Finx in Flux and Sentanced to Prism spring to mind.

His version of The Black Hole was beautifully worded.

...and I've just found a PDF of it!
http://www.univeros.com/usenet/cache/al ... 20Hole.pdf

I sense the works printer getting some abuse tomorrow.

markos1963

^ Hmmmmmm I wonder how much ink I've got left in my printer?

seataltea

I've read dozens of Sci-Fi books and have found the most awe inspiring are written by Iain M Banks.

The Algebraist, Matter and Surface Detail are incredible, all his Culture series are very good.

For techno sci fi set in the present the WWW series of three books by Robert J Sawyer (he wrote FlashForward if you saw that on tv).

Scott Sigler writes some interesting books of which a number can be found legally for free as podcasts.

Z A Recht, Jonathan Mayberry J L Bourne and Max Brooks write some very good science/biotech apocalypse fiction (World War Z currently filming in Glasgow is an excellent book and a must read).

Peter Clines two latest books Ex Heroes and Ex Patriots are way out there but worth a read.

I have to say I cheat because I actually listen to most of my books whilst riding, got six on the go at present, not enough hours in the day to work ride and 'read'.

RDW

Strangely enough, just re-reading A Scanner Darkly at the moment and also have (but haven't yet watched) the DVD. If you like that one you should also give VALIS a try, maybe my favourite PKD. Both books apparently have twisted 'autobiographical' elements, which is a scary thought. For a funnier and non-SF but hardly less dark take on that sort of state of mind, Hunter S Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is well worth checking out.

The Man in the High Castle, which I only got to quite recently, is also excellent. It's up there with my other favourite alternate history, Keith Roberts's beautifully written Pavane, where the timeline diverges several centuries earlier. Roberts also did the 'Axis victory' scenario in a chilling short story, Weihnachtsabend, and Robert Harris's more mainstream Fatherland is another fine take on this theme.

Can't argue with Ballard or Gibson. Must pick up the complete Ballard short stories at some point. Gibson's early short stories collected in Burning Chrome are also very good, with several in the Neuromancer universe. Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash takes this sort of cyberpunk theme and turns it up to 11; also enjoyed The Diamond Age and Cryptonomicon. I tend to prefer Iain Banks's 'non-M' novels like The Bridge to the Culture stuff.

Saw Primer just a few weeks ago - it's going to take several viewings before the plot's much clearer than this!: http://xkcd.com/657/

Anonymous

Does "Back to the Future", count ?

nmcgann

Going a bit left-field:

Distraction
Heavy Weather
The Zenith Angle
- all by Bruce Sterling

RDW

Clank wrote:

nmcgann wrote:

See how many you score on this list:

http://scifilists.sffjazz.com/lists_books_rank1.html

I managed 74

A meagre 11.

No 'This Perfect Day' (Ira Levin). Another book, like 'Brave New World' that inspired an aweful that came after it.

But pleased to see both Startide Rising and The Uplift War in the list.

37 for me

Agree about Ira Levin, but nice to see Le Guin there 3 times (must read The Lathe of Heaven) and Alfred Bester twice. An early introduction to SF for me was a great compilation put together, bizarrely, by Marks & Spencer:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Great-Science-F ... 0904230988

The Demolished Man, 2001, The Day of the Triffids and I, Robot all in one book!