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September 16, 2005Reading Suggestions?I have a rare day off tomorrow and it's supposed to rain all day. I need a book recommendation from you. I wonder if there is a good sci-fi book about colonizing a new planet and the struggles of setting up a government there? I've enjoyed greatly the Allyn Steele books so something along those lines would be welcome. Tomorrow morning I'll go to Borders... Update 9/17 10:30 AM: Thanks for all of your suggestions. Most of those I've already read and they were very good indeed. I decided not to drive to West Leb this morning and instead went to the local used bookstore and picked up a good condition paperback copy of James Blish's Cities In Flight which has all four novels in one volume. I'm going to dig into it after I finish blabbing here at Alphecca. This search for "starting over" on a new planet did give me an idea for something that I will flesh-out and propose later this weekend so stop back tonight or tomorrow. I think you libertarian sci-fi nuts like me will want to participate. Comments
Two classic Heinleins come to mind, Time Enough for Love and Tunnel in the Sky, but I'm sure you've read those. If you haven't yet, try out Poul Anderson's Harvest of Stars, to my mind his masterpiece. It's not quite what you're looking for (no colonization until the last third, and then it's glossed over), but it's a damn good book. Posted by: Ian Hamet at September 16, 2005 03:05 PMYea, gotta go along with Heinlein. Big chunks of one of the Lazarus Long books, and does "Farnham's Freehold" qualify, I wonder? Posted by: JohnW at September 16, 2005 03:48 PMI just re-read a bunch of Heinlein including my old copy of Farnham's Freehold Posted by: Jeff Soyer at September 16, 2005 03:50 PMAsimov: Foundation (series) George Stewart: Earth Abides (Damn, I'm thinkin "spindizzys" -- ah, yes, the Cities In Flight series. Blish.) Y' wanna read about EXACTLY what happened in N.O. go find Lucifer's Hammer (well *almost* exactly, but real close). Sorry, I know it is apostasy, but Heinlein gets old real fast - I started to notice the theme way back in the seventies. He never left that path. Forget sci fi - go get David McCullough's 1776. Its a tremendous page turner and has huge implications on the 2nd Amendment with fascinating discussions of the weapons employed. Excellent. Posted by: countertop at September 16, 2005 05:44 PMIt's not "colonizing a new planet," more like recolonizing this one, but there's some interesting and occasionally funny material about setting up a government in S.M. Stirling's Island in the Sea of Time. Posted by: wolfwalker at September 16, 2005 06:09 PMNot particularly colonization, but try just about anything by David Weber. If you want colonization, try "Building Harlequin's Moon" Larry Niven/Brenda Cooper. It's not kick-ass, but you can have fun picking on it in many spots. Posted by: Hank at September 16, 2005 07:32 PMtry Anne McCaffreys' Freedom series. Freedoms Landing is the first of three. Posted by: kerry at September 16, 2005 10:09 PMHave you read John Ross' Unintended Consequences? Not science fiction, but a good read for anyone interested in the Second Amendment. I drew a lot of thoughts from the book as I watched the confiscation process in NO last week. Posted by: wrangler5 at September 16, 2005 10:30 PMI second Island In The Sea Of Time. Kim Stanley Robinson's "Mars" trilogy: Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars. Peter F. Hamilton's "Night's Dawn" trilogy, which is actually 6 paperbacks, 2 to each part. One of the best things I've read. I read it borrowed and have to buy it sometime so Deb can read it and I can again someday. Vernor Vinge's A Deepness In The Sky and A Fire Upon The Deep. Love the concepts of a galactic Usenet as the freewheeling, blogosphere-like source of news and rumor, and of computer code archeology in which there is code on top of code dating all the way back to, well, now, to the point that people don't even know what all is there anymore. Posted by: Jay at September 16, 2005 11:15 PMLegacy of Heorot, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0671695320/002-9000831-8788038?v=glance Government not so much an issue as survival. Posted by: Tim R at September 17, 2005 12:18 AMJoan D Vinge's Snow Queen and Summer Queen are excellent if a bit larger in scope than a single planet. Charles Stross's Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise are more recent hard science fiction that touch on different ways humans might colonize planets. Posted by: John Allan Tallant at September 17, 2005 12:56 AMTry Fredrick Pool's Mining the Oort. I always enjoyed that one myself... Posted by: Windaria at September 17, 2005 09:40 AMSo... what'd you go with? :) Posted by: Ian Hamet at September 17, 2005 02:36 PMCities in Flight by James Blish. Posted by: Jeff Soyer at September 17, 2005 04:48 PMTry Elizabeth Moon's Once a Hero Or Bujold's Warrior's Apprentice If you want to start something almost as long as LOTR, try Moon's Posted by: Zendo Deb at September 17, 2005 06:34 PMThe Deed of Paksenarriom - don't know why that didn't come through... Posted by: Zendo Deb at September 17, 2005 06:36 PMthe comment input form disappears. Your comments are welcome. You don't need to enter a URL and you don't need a "valid" email address, either. Note though that MT Blacklist is installed to flag suspiciously spam-like strings. Unfortunately, because of the bastard spammers, the strings "google.com" and "yahoo.com" (even in your email address) are currently banned as well. So are strings such as "cialis" (a common spam) which rules out words such as "socialism". Try putting a hyphan in a word like that. By Golly, you're reading an archived post. Click Here to head to the main page and read current stuff...Into science fiction? Check out my group blog novel, Colony: Alchibah. See the reader's guide there for first-timer tips. |
