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What Is Your Favorite Sifi Book?

BilgeRat

BilgeRat

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The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress by Heinlein probably tops the list, but it's closely followed by Time Enough For Love. I can put myself in Manny's shoes (The jack of all trades thing!) in Moon and Time Enough For Love is simply a huge sprawling story built on a wild premise taken to the Nth degree. Heinlein was simply brilliant.

In modern stuff, I like Paolo Bachagalupi, but in small doses. He paints a very bleak future for us; and it can be hard reading. I especially liked The Calorie Man in the Pump Six collection. The man (Paolo, not calorie!) is so subtle, it's almost eerie. I had to read the story several times to catch a lot of the nuances and oblique references in it.

In post apocalyptic stuff, Alas, Babylon! riveted me to my chair when I was a kid, and I still re read it on occasion. Newer post apocalyptic, I'd have to go with The Dog Stars by Peter Heller.
 
AriLea

AriLea

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One place I like and sometimes not, is addressing this argument between science and religion. So it's fun when a priest becomes the hero in a SiFi book. Of course many characters have operated as that without being stated that way. And of course also fun when a scientist enters into an apparent mystical environment. Star Trek did a lot of that. It did the later very well, and the former very poorly.

I think Dune only did reality vs religion. Or maybe society vs religion. Yes they chewed religion down a bit to feed a technical reality. But left all mystery as undisclosed technology. Yes, Dune was good. Just not 'ultimate'. Maybe magic? Yes definitely, lots of times SiFi pits magic against science. It's a principle target actually. A good SiFi doesn't need to be 'ultimate' to be good.

IMHO, on the 'ultimate other side' science and spirit converge. Religion (and science) is our extremely poor attempt to converge on this side.

It's a big universe. SiFi usually addresses human-earth based society and it's singular future. I think an 'ultimate' SiFi should deal with the 'convergence' I noted above, but also with Earth just being a small part of a galactic society as well examine the ultimate future of 'self' and that of a 'soul'.
Null-A kind of went across most of that, with the possible exception of 'soul'. To deal with that a book would have to take-on the 'other side'. So far that's usually a bit off limits, with a few exceptions.
 
NSTG8R

NSTG8R

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AriLea said:
One place I like and sometimes not, is addressing this argument between science and religion. So it's fun when a priest becomes the hero in a SiFi book. Of course many characters have operated as that without being stated that way. And of course also fun when a scientist enters into an apparent mystical environment. Star Trek did a lot of that. It did the later very well, and the former very poorly.

I think Dune only did reality vs religion. Or maybe society vs religion. Yes they chewed religion down a bit to feed a technical reality. But left all mystery as undisclosed technology. Yes, Dune was good. Just not 'ultimate'. Maybe magic? Yes definitely, lots of times SiFi pits magic against science. It's a principle target actually. A good SiFi doesn't need to be 'ultimate' to be good.

IMHO, on the 'ultimate other side' science and spirit converge. Religion (and science) is our extremely poor attempt to converge on this side.

It's a big universe. SiFi usually addresses human-earth based society and it's singular future. I think an 'ultimate' SiFi should deal with the 'convergence' I noted above, but also with Earth just being a small part of a galactic society as well examine the ultimate future of 'self' and that of a 'soul'.
Null-A kind of went across most of that, with the possible exception of 'soul'. To deal with that a book would have to take-on the 'other side'. So far that's usually a bit off limits, with a few exceptions.
Click to expand...

While not 'technically' intended to be sci-fi, "What the *Bleep* Do We Know: Down the Rabbit Hole" does kind of imply the connection between religion/spirituality and quantum physics is possible. Not sure if there's a book, but the movie was intriguing. Might be right up your alley, Ari. Covers quantum entanglement, how "intention" can change the physical properties of matter (experiment using Buddhist Monks and the formation of ice crystals :twitch:), and "spooky action at a distance", Schroedinger's Cat, and other such mind blowing experiments and theories. Check it out if you haven't already.

http://www.whatthebleep.com/down-the-rabbit-hole/

Edit: I could've sworn I read something recently about another quantum entanglement experiment that gives the theory more credence (Caltech?).

Water crystal experiment by Dr. Emoto:

http://www.whatthebleep.com/water-crystals/
 
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