SMBC Comics Forum

I was really hoping to have the appendices filmed.

A loss to us all...

I know ya'll are joking, but things like the take-over of Hobbiton should not have been cut out. Not only it is a cool thing to have at the end of an already epic movie, but it tells us what happens to Saruman.

That was the ONE thing of "filler" that i wish they hadn't cut out, cause I felt it was actually a relevant part of the book. But oh well... I think they figured by the end of the movie people would be saying "FFS JUST END ALREADY" which they were....

Yep.

If I didn't already own the regular versions of the movie, I'd get the extended editions. But, no sense in having both.

I didn't know there were extended editions... but it makes sense, so why not.

Btw, thanks for the title, whoever gave that to me I like it.

That would be me. Ed will be next up with Avalant I believe.

Has anybody read The Algebraist (Ian M. Banks' non-Culture sci-fi) or Altered Carbon?

Yeah I read The Algebraist last year. It was pretty enjoyable, and I found it really interesting.

Cool. I ordered both for $seventy-four Great English Pence each off of Amazon Marketplaces. They should arrive soon, having been despatched a mere 16 hours ago.

I also ordered Consider Phlebas, for three-eighths of a UK dollar, as I want to reread through the Culture novels from the start.

Felstaff wrote:UK dollar

It's properly called a Dollarpound

Not to be confused with the Dollaridoo, which the official currency of the Australian economy.

Felstaff wrote:Cool. I ordered both for $seventy-four Great English Pence each off of Amazon Marketplaces. They should arrive soon, having been despatched a mere 16 hours ago.

I also ordered Consider Phlebas, for three-eighths of a UK dollar, as I want to reread through the Culture novels from the start.

I still have to read the Culture novels, actually. Soon!

I'm know some of these have been mentioned here already, because I did read some of thread. But I'm going to repeat them. Sci-fi is my favorite genre to read, I tend to favor dystopian and avoid space opera. Not all of these are depressing or horrific, but many are.

Schismatrix - Bruce Sterling (or really anything by him, Schismatrix Plus has a few relevant short stories at the end)

Neuromancer - William Gibson (or anything except Pattern Recognition, Spook Country, or Zero History. Excellent books, but not really sci-fi)

Isaac Asimov - anything, anything at all. For a paper years ago I read every single book and short story he wrote involving robots and his three laws. It took a long time but was worth it.

Ray Bradbury - again anything at all pretty much. Some of his stuff is straight up horror, not sci-fi, but read it anyway. Bradbury is just hands down an excellent writer.

WE - Yevgeny Zamyatin - because of the way this book it is written, it is incredibly frustrating to read, but that is kind of the point. By the end you will almost certainly be feeling the emotions the author intended.

The Road - Cormac McCarthy - Now and incredibly depressing and horrific movie! I only watched the first 20 minutes, I heard it is an excellent adaptation.

1984 - Orwell (of course)

Brave New World - Aldous Huxely

Robert Heinlen is important to sci-fi, but I'm not a huge fan personally. His YA book, Have Space Suit Will Travel is actually the only one I've ever re-read.

The Books of the New Sun (4 books)- Gene Wolfe - amazingly good writer, incredibly difficult to read, skip the coda

A Canticle for Leibowitz - Walter M. Miller

The Wanting Seed - Anthony Burgess (also Clockwork Orange)

Almost anything by Phillip K. Dick, although some of his books from the 50s are rather predictable and some of his books from the 60s were written while under the influence of way too many drugs. The stuff written in the 70s, Flow My Tears the Policeman Said and A Scanner Darkly are great. I'm told the VALIS trilogy is excellent, haven't gotten to it. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (Blade Runner) is not his best, although still good.

Michael Swanwick - I haven't read his sci-fi books yet, but if they are anywhere near as good as his fantasy books or his sci-fi short fiction, they should be excellent.

Altered Carbon - Richard K. Morgan - I thought it was a bit overly pulpy, but a lot of people like and it was his first book. I haven't read any of his others.

The Androids Dream - John Scalzi - Nothing really stands out about this book except his parody of scientology, but it all works very well together. Apparently he usually writes space opera stuff. I thoroughly enjoyed it both times I read it.

Douglass Adams - Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - The only trilogy with five books! I consider this dystopian because it turns out that the future is not any brighter, just the same stupidity on a larger scale.

The Dispossessed - Ursula K. LeGuin (Everything in the "Hainish Cycle" is sci-fi, but this is the only one I read. The Earthsea Novels are fantasy)

I like you. I am also pretty obsessed with science fiction (though I don't restrict myself to it). I don't really tend to stick to one specific genre either, as long as the books are interesting and well plotted. Do not really like steampunk though.
My favourite sci fi authors would have to be Ray Bradbury, Nancy Kress, Isaac Asimov, Dan Simmons, Robert Silverberg, Arthur C. Clarke and Philip K. Dick. I'm always looking for new stuff to read however, even though I have quite the large list at the moment.