Below is a ‘cut&paste’ of all suggestions I have seen in the first 140 posts. For the real geeks 🙂
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As I noted in the earlier discussion, Bruce Campbell’s “If Chins Could Kill” is an absolute hoot. He documents his travels through the entertainment system, including details of “Evil Dead”, “Brisco County”, Herc and Xena, etc. The second edition I had featured an update to the original, but I don’t know if he’s added any ‘Burn Notice’ material. Good, funny stuff.
Please tell me there isn’t anyone reading this discussion that hasn’t already read “Hitchhiker’s Guide”.
Harry Potter is overrated. It’s a great starter drug for early teens, but there’s nothing there that hasn’t been done dozens of times before. Get your kids Pratchett’s “Tiffany Aching” books instead. Better yet, go back to L’Engle’s “Wrinkle in Time”.
“1632” Really? There are so many better examples of military SF: anything by Weber or Drake leap to mind.
Oops, there’s ‘Starship Troopers’, the mutha of all military SF novels.
Four books from the same series? I haven’t read ‘Serpentwar’, but I can’t believe all four deserve a place at the expense of any mention of Discworld, Xanth, or Pern.
‘Shannara’ is for people who think Harry Potter is as good as it gets.
I’d suggest Heinlein’s “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” (TANSTAAFL!), and Gaimen and Pratchett’s “Good Omens”?
Lady Cottington’s Pressed Fairy Book, by Terry Jones.
High-Tech thrillers of Daniel Suarez!!
Daemon and Freedom
Heinlein’s The Number of the Beast
Anne McCaffrey’s Pern Books
The Dunes Saga
No Charles Stross?? Stephen Baxter? Iain Banks? Stross gets you to near-term yet cutting edge ideas on computing technology, e.g., “Halting State”. And geek, you HAVE to think space opera — I’m definitely down with Alastair Reynolds, but for techno-geeky science-based, Baxter’s Xeelee stuff (Ring, Timelike Infinity, etc.) and the granddaddy himself, Banks’ Culture novels … I mean, c’MON!!
Sedgewick’s “Algorithms”
The CRC Handbook of Physics and Chemistry
Bill Bryson’s “A Short History of Nearly Everything”
Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s “The Black Swan”
George Friedman’s “The Next 100 Years”
Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon
Simon Singh’s The Code Book
Lucifer’s Hammer, The Door into Summer, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, Rendezvous with Rama, Tau Zero, Jem, Tales of Pirx the Pilot
Time Enough For Love, and Notebooks of Lazarus Long
If there’s any one book that screams it’s absence, “Moon is a Harsh Mistress” is the one.
Niven and Pournelle’s ‘Lucifer’s Hammer’ could bump any one of about 40 books on this list, and I’d recommend it over Niven’s ‘Ringworld’.
Lucifer’s Hammer is a good book to read. It has information about how to plan for a major disaster as well as an interesting read.
By the same authors, Footfall, is about an attack and invasion by aliens who look like pachyderms.
Brin’s Sundiver, Startide Rising and Uplift war are also fun to read. These are stories of interaction between humans and intergalactic civilizations.
Gordon R. Dickson’s ‘Alien Art’ is a great sci-fi novel that explores our own self-centrism and asks us to look outside the norm. It’s a fun read as well.
Many of Stephen King’s books could be listed but The Stand for certain
Italo Calvino – “Cosmicomics” and “If On A Winter’s Night A Traveller”
Stanislaw Lem – various
Frank Herbert – “The Dosadi Experiment”
John Varley – “The Ophiuchi Hotline”
And for the love of “god”, lose the wacko sociopathic Ayn Rand
Without V for Vendetta, I would not call this list as full for geeks
The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong, Laurence J. Peter, Raymond Hull
Body by Science, John R. Little, Doug McGuff
The Story of Ping, Marjorie Flack
Everything You Know is Wrong, Lloyd Pye
The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, Greg Palast
A People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn
Outliers : The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything, Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner
The Hobbit, JRR Tolkein
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins
here’s another suggestion for the list: it may be a primarily a chick read, but girl geeks will totally get Diana Gabaldon’s Voyager series. The sci-fi element is time travel through the mystical standing stones of Britain, but the detailed panorama of history — and historical interconnections woven throughout the series — is fascinating.
What on earth? I must admit half the list was good? But not one single book of Terry Pratchett?
Alex Beshers series – Rim, Mir and Chi about the evolution of the internet and cyberspace.
“The Peter Principle:
Why Things Always Go Wrong, by Laurence J. Peter is an interesting read on how corporate America works as well. The book is still relevant.”
Jennifer Government by Max Berry
The Lost Regiment by William R Forstchen
Legacy of Aldenata Series by John Ringo
Looking Glass series by John Ringo
Kris Longknife series by Mike Sheppard
Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove
the Berserkers series by Saberhagen. These were written in the second golden age of SciFi, and seem to have been tapped for countless ideas in movies.
Havoc
by R. J. Pineiro
How could you leave out The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein
Peter & Hull – The Peter Principle
Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
Meditations, Marcus Aurelius
Discourses, Epictetus
Letters from a Stoic, Seneca
Individuals and their Rights, Tibor Machan
Persons, Rights,, and their Moral Community, Loren Lomasky
Essays, Michel De Montaigne
The Selfish Gene, Richards Dawkins
Dragons of Eden, Carl Sagan
The Art of the Personal Essay, Philip Lopate
Green Eggs and Ham, Dr. Seuss
Ringworld, Larry Niven
Have Spacesuit, Will Travel, Robert Heinlein
Roman Blood, Steven Saylor
Tarzan of the Apes, Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Incarnations of Immortality, Piers Anthony.
No David Eddings or Terry Pratchett? Shhhurely some mistake.
The Laidoff Ninja by Craig Brown and Javed Ikbal
Could ‘A Canticle for Leibowitz’ be a contender for the list?
Kurt Vonnegut’s Player Piano would be my addition.
I also wonder if Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock and The Next Wave should be considered.
Where is the Dark Tower Series by Stephen King?
In my opinion, there are some missing works here, for example: “Martian Chronicles” (Bradbury) and “When Gravity Fails” (George Alec Effinger).
And for Comics: “V for Vendetta”,”The leage of extraordinary gentlemen”,”The Dark Night Returns” and “Kingdom come”
E. E. Smith – The Lensman series
Spacehounds of the IPC
The Laidoff Ninja by Craig Brown and Javed Ikbal
Could ‘A Canticle for Leibowitz’ be a contender for the list?
Absolutely should be
Kurt Vonnegut’s Player Piano would be my addition.
I also wonder if Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock and The Next Wave should be considered.
I am a small “l” libertarian and still say “Atlas Shrugged” changed my life, along with Murray Rothbard’s “Libertarian Manifesto”.
To who ever added Epictitus, most excellent!!! I would add John Stuart Mill, John Locke Aristotle (esp. “On Politics”), and Hereclitus.
I would remove all the Middle Earth crap and replace them with “Gormenghast” by Mervyn Peake. Ringworld I found very tedious. Lucifer’s Hammer I enjoyed, whie The Mote in God’s Eye, I also found dull.
Additions:
James Blish: A Case of Conscious
Chtistopher Alexander: A Pattern Language
Heinlein: Moon… yes!
Michael Moorcock/Gene Wolfe -maybe?? your move.
ALL of James Tiptree, Jr.
All of Jim Thompson
Mickey Spillane
Zelazny: off “Amber” add “Jack of Shadows
Samuel R. Delaney: Dhalgren (!!!)
Gore Vidal: Messiah
See, what is the “list” supposed to represent anyway? Technical competence? Solid grounding in the Western Canon? Add “Zen and the Art of Archery” and most Kurosawa films.
Ah well,those more enlightened may have a go.
Oh let’s not forget all Hunter S. Thompson, Tom Wolfe, “A Man in Full” (crash and burn baby, and the collected works of L. vBeethoven and the Killer, Jerry Lee Lewis!
Tertium Organum by P.D.Ouspensky. It will stretch your mind…
Where is Jack Vance? Jerry Pournelle?
