OT - favorite science fiction-another touchy feelie

[Lord Kodos]

sorry about youre uncle but on to the topic my favorite book would definitly be any f the Oddysey series and as far as tv the japanease anime Gundam WIng,Star tRek the next generation and well thats it bye bye

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Some rule some serve
some declare wars some
fight them
i declare wars i rule
you serve you fight
wars.....
we are not the same.....
never forget that..

[Mad_Lear]

The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick is my all time favorite. Also a big fan of Zelazny and Bradbury. I guess I started really reading sci-fi around age 13 (I'm 23 now). Kind of graduated to sci-fi from pulp fantasy (not that there's anything particularly wrong with fantasy, pulp or otherwise).

Oh, and while we're on the subject of sci-fi writing, I think I'll add a gratuitous plug for one of my favorite sci-fi publications, On-Spec,
a Canadian-based speculative short story and poetry magazine. The story quality is high, the voice tends to be uniquely Canadian (although On-Spec is not a Canadian-only publication; submissions are accepted from anyone who wants to send one in) and there is plenty of content for the money (four issues a year, each running 100 pages plus). Anyway, I just thought I'd put the word out there, especially to fellow Canuks who might be interested. I'd recommend the mag to anyone though, especially to you Americans with that kick-*** exchange rate! Anyway, great thread LCC, it will be interesting to see what some of the other SIEV players out there are reading.

quote:

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Originally posted by Mad_Lear:
Anyway, great thread LCC, it will be interesting to see what some of the other SIEV players out there are reading.

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I go off for a shower and supper. When I get back there are already two replies and a compliment! Okay, more of the same! I would like to keep this thread clean, no flames like I was guilty of in other threads. So unless you have something good to say about an author or title do not say it. Start another thread if you like - such as "what authors do you hate ?"

Some other top ten authors/titles in no particular order
"Citizen of the Galaxy" Robert A. Heinlein
"The Probability Broach" and others in series L. Neil Smith
"The Revolution From Rosinante" and others in series Alexei Gilliand
"When Harlie Was One" David Gerrold
"A Fire Upon the Deep" Vernor Vinge
"The Stainless Steel Rat" and others in series Harry Harrison
Well, the list could go on and on. If people are really interested I could locate my old book catalog or the list I published before and just give one book for each author up to 1986. I never updated it for later books, because I did not think that anybody was interested.


[This message has been edited by LCC (edited 10 August 2001).]

[Phoenix-D]

Definitely Fire Upon the Deep.

Also Startide Rising, the Honor Harringtons series, A Mote in Gods Eye, and plenty I can't think of right now

Phoenix-D

[BeeDee10]

Hmm... That mention of Fire Upon the Deep makes me think, wouldn't it be neat to be able to implement Vingean "Zones" in an SEIV map? For those that haven't read the book, in that universe there is some kind of field emanating from the galactic core that affects what kinds of technology can operate. The closer to the core you are, the less stuff works; when you get close enough ordinary living brains stop working and people die. Faster-than-light travel is only possible in the outer half of the galaxy.

I can think of a couple of ways this kind of thing could be implemented in SEIV already. Systems can have built-in shield inhibiting effects and combat sensor interferance, so you could set up a map where the systems at one end have high shield inhibition and high combat sensor interferance and the systems at the other end don't, with a smooth gradient between the zones or a sharp border depending on the designer's preference.

This sounds kind of neat. Ships designed to take advantage of conditions on one side of the map would be at a severe disadvantage on the other side, and ships designed to work well under both conditions wouldn't do so well against specialized ships on their home turf. Heh. I'm going to go look through the abilities.txt file to see if there are other system-wide capabilities I can employ. Maybe I'll finally set up my own PBW game if this works well.

[Phoenix-D]

For slowing ships down- perhaps the "random movement" ability?

You couldn't do the Zone storms, nor the effects on the Transence and higher levels of the beyond on how tech actually works, but..perhaps the maintance decrease ability? Can you apply that to a system? So as you get deeper, that ability starts to get weaker, making your ships more expensive.

Using combat sensor abilities would probably be a bad idea. It would affect all ships evenly, so the low tech ships would be at a disdvantage no matter where they were.

Phoenix-D

I found my index, but many books I do not recall well, even the ones I marked as really good. Here are the a-b authors. I am going to stick to one book per author, which is a hard choice for authors like Poul Anderson.....

Douglas Adams - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Robert Adams - Castaways In Time
Terry Adams - Sentience
Brian Aldiss - Starship
Roger McBride Allen - Rogue Powers
Chester Anderson - Ten Years To Doomsday
Poul Anderson - Fire Time
Piers Anthony - Prostho Plus
Christopher Anvil - Pandora's Planet
Isaac Asimov - The End of Eternity
Robert Asprin - Thieve's World
Bill Baldwin - The Helmsman
Brian Ball - Planet Probability
Balmer & Wylie - When Worlds Collide
Pierre Barbet - Baphomet's Meteor
Neal Barrett Jr. - The Karma Corps
T.J. Bass - The Godwhale
Barrington Bayley - The Zen Gun
Greg Bear - Eon
Gregory Benford - Timescape
Stephen Berry - The Biofab War
Alfred Bester - The Stars My Destination
Lloyd Biggle Jr. - The Light That Never Was
David Bischoff - Day of the Dragonstar
James Blish - Cities In Flight
J.F. Bone - Confederation Matador
Ben Bova - Millenium
John Boyd - The Last Starship From Earth
Leigh Brackett - The Long Tomorrow
Ray Bradbury - Dandelion Wine
Marion Zimmer Bradley - Seven From the Stars
Reginald Bretnor - Gilpin's Space
David Brin - The Practice Effect
Fedrick Brown - Martians Go Home
John Brunner - The Crucible of Time
Algis Budrys - The Falling Torch
Lois McMaster Bujold - The Warrior's Apprentice
Kenneth Bulmer - On the Symb-Socket Circuit
William R. Burkett Jr. - Sleeping Planet
Edgar Rice Burroughs - A Princess of Mars
F.M. Busby - All These Earths
Edward Byers - The Long Forgetting
I cut a lot of authors and of course nothing here is later than 89 when my books got packed....