Be Excellent To Each Other

I'd really like to read some fun sci fi, preferably of a cyberpunk nature that's well written but not necessarily that clever or deep. Neuromancer was great but later Gibson just tends to be too clever for its own good.

Artificial Kid by Bruce Sterling didn't have enough action and got far too profound.

I'm looking for an exciting adventure with plenty of action. It's got to be short too. I hate long books. Especially long books that are in a 'saga' or 'trilogy'. No excessive technobabble or barely above fan fiction style of writing (like say Halo books or warhammer 40k something).

Is this at all possible?

Oh and I've read pretty much every PKD book going.

Kurt Vonnegut is generally too quirky as well. Something decent like the Ender/Shadow series by Orson Scott Card would be nice actually.

Am I possibly asking a bit much here?

Putting aside the fact that I happen to think Dan Abnett's 40K writing is some of the best Sci-fi I've read, some suggestions:

Richard Morgan
Neal Stephenson
Chris Bunch

I don't know if I would call it shallow, but have you read Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson? Generally considered one of the initial cyberpunk books, it is really a very good read. I read it on a holiday, so it can't be that deep.

Also Micheal Marshall Smith is v good cyberpunk, and Jeff Noon also. Gosh, there is loads! Also, although not Cyberpunk, the Harry Dresden books by Jim Butcher are incredibly readable. Magic in a common setting, probably more Cyberfantasy for wont of a better description.

You have read Virtual Light yeah? One of my favorites that one.
I didn't really rate Diamond Age myself but most other Neal Stephenson is good. Snow Crash is a must.

Umm.

From what I've seen of 40k novels and the like they seem to get bogged down in stuff related to the universe and whatnot. They often seem to focus a lot on the structures rather than the action.

I like minimal description and lots of doing and thinking. Lots of dialogue is good. Whenever I've written stories it's tended to be almost exclusively dialogue. But then I am crap at writing stories.

I think I have read virtual light... yes yes I remember now.. the sunglasses. Unimpressed in comparison to Neuromancer because you don't really have much clue what's going off and in the end it turns out not much really. If you've read Artificial Kid..then I'm looking for stuff like the first 1/4 of that book before the 'road trip' style stuff starts.

'The Diamond Age' is one of the very few books that I have never finished, nor have any desire to go back to. I found it terribly boring compared to 'Snow Crash'. Maybe that's just me though.

Micheal Marshall Smith's books are super awesome. Very imaginative and interesting. Some odd concepts in there, but I would recommend 'Spares' and 'Only Forward' about as highly as any book. They're written fantastically.

Jeff Noon's 'Vurt' is interesting too. Like psychadeliapunk rather than cyber, but very interesting.

The Alien vs. Predator books are actually not bad. I read two or three of them a few years ago. Straightforward but satisfying. Some attempt was made to integrate aspects of the book's plot in the film(s).

Oh, 90% of them are dross, but Abnett's stuff is great. It's all the characters, the dialogue, and the action.

I'd actually consider those Abnett books then. I don't know if I could read something as familiar as Aliens/Predator. I enjoy the more human against human stuff and more the average guy than military.

Thanks for the recommendations so far chaps by the way. I don't want to seem ungrateful. Neal Stephenson has potential.

It's also worth considering that I think a book is ideally about 300 pages.

Sorry, I love sci-fi that's the complete opposite to what you're looking for.

I've had my mind twisted enough by PKD (through his many brilliant works) and struggled to follow the many characters and actions that Gibson has thrown at us in his books. Been a little frustrated at the three Vonnegut books I've read so far largely amounting to the same thing (Sirens of Titan (utterly brilliant), Timequake (fascinating and oft touching semi biography) and Slaughterhouse 5 (Least favourite so far but still quite fascinating but all of these put together just end up that bit too quirky), somewhat bored by Bruce Sterling's Artificial Kid but I have been enthralled by Orson Scott Card's Ender/Shadow series.

I'm just looking for something fun and exciting to relax with for now.

A friend once got my Stand on Zanzibar for my birthday and I've never really got anywhere in that. The writing just seems to put me off.

I like chapters to be about 10-15 pages as well because I only seem to get chance to read late at night and that's as far as I get before I fall asleep.

Then I repeat my Abnett recommendation (particularly the Gaunt's Ghosts series) and also Chris Bunch's Sten series.

I've just been looking through amazon.. it seems most are graphic novels written by Abnett. Which are the books?

My recommendations still apply.

Odd, I'm sure he's written more books than graphic novels.

There you go. I think "The Founding" is the first of the Gaunt's Ghosts.

Doesn't really match the original question but I've been reading a lot of Star Trek books lately, and they've gotten really good (for fairly shallow tie-in books) - now the shows are off-air they have a lot more freedom to do stuff with the characters without having to hit the reset button at the end.

Still if you ever enjoyed Star Trek TNG you could do worse than picking up a copy of David Mack's "A Time To Kill"- it is part of a series but it's fairly self-contained and involves a load of planetary action and such. There's a direct sequel "A Time To Heal" which is a bit deeper in tone and sets the crew as a peacekeepers in a world faced with civil war.

I really didn't like TNG. I'm B5/Firefly fan ..

Excession - Iain M Banks

I tried some Iain Banks (Wasp Factor) hated it. Is his Iain M Banks much different?

Fluffy adventure Sci Fi can be had in pretty much any of the Stainless Steel Rat novels if you can get past the fact that in the future every door still has a lock that can be picked.

Alan Dean Foster's work you can skim through easily enough without ever really crumpling your forehead - The Man who Used the Universe being a good example.

Try picking up some compilations of short stories, I've found this often leads me on to read stuff by authors I had never heard of or assumed I wouldn't like.

Larry Niven has some good stuff... Protector, his Tales of Known Space short stories, stuff like that. Dream Park, The Barsoom Project, Legacy of Heorot are also brilliant collaborations of his.

Snow Crash is indeed excellent. (Zodiac by Neal Stephenson is also good, but not sci-fi)

Yeah there's some good "Golden Age" compilations.

In fact speaking of that some of the standalone Asimov novels are worth a read; The Gods Themselves being a particularly good example.

Iain Banks > Iain M Banks

It's his SciFi stuff. By and by it's average to good, but the sex scenes are out of place and risible.

The best Sci Fi book I've ever read has to be Titan by John Varley. Bit of a Rendezvous with Rama rip-off, but a really excellent read in its own right.

Richard Morgan's "Altered Carbon" is great, as are the 'Aliens' books, especially Earth War, Female War, Rogue and Labyrinth. You'd best read Nightmare Asylum too, as it comes between Earth War and Female War as part of a Trilogy.

Lasted roughly a week. Am I right eh? Lads? Eh?

Hmm, let me think...

A Gift From Earth is an under-rated gem from Larry Niven, all about a tiny colony planet, a rebellion and organ farming. It's fast, fun and with some good ideas.

Alfred Bester's 'Tiger Tiger' which is also known as The Stars My Destination, and The Demolished Man, are two of the most perfect sci-fi books ever written and very easy to get through, pretty slim books too. He only ever wrote those two sci-fi books as far as I'm aware, but they have such a punch and are so bursting with energy and unputdownableness that its mind boggling that people around him didn't immediately kidnap him on his 'retirement' and beat him up into writing more.

"I kill you! I kill you filthy!" Seriously, try those two. Really. Tiger Tiger is about a brutal, ugly, not so bright stoker who vows to track down the passanger liner that sailed past his wrecked ship's distress signal and kill whoever's responsible. "It has been described as an ancestor of cyberpunk," says Wikipedia. But it is so much more than that, and very cool. 'Demolished Man' is about a very, very, very clever man trying to get away with murder in a world where the police have telepaths. Both are awesome.

And you can't go far wrong with the Sci-Fi Masterworks line, which consists of 100 books chosen by a massive panel of sci-fi writers.

1) Disagree strongly

I've always liked Robert A. Heinlein's stuff, particularly his 'juveniles', as I never matured much past a mental age of twelve. Starship Troopers and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress would come highly recommended.

Nowt wrong about those. Starship Troopers is still a blast, though I haven't read it for years and refuse to buy it as it's £8.99 or something everywhere. I do dearly love the Verhoven movie though - WHICH NEARLY EVERYONE MISUNDERSTOOD.

I also love Heinlein's 'The Puppetmasters', which is like Invasion of the Bodysnatchers but with humanity kicking ass back. He's having a lot of fun in that one. Heinlein's characters are pretty terrible, his politics frequently odious to me and his plots a bit simple - but he's always got such kick-ass concepts and is having obviously so much fun that I don't care. I'm in for the ride.

I'd be interested to know how I misunderstood it...

I'd certainly like to know more.

And you shall! I shall write a revisionist review of it, citing the reasons for its aceness.

Kudos to Mali for the film-ref.

Does it involve Doogie Howser being a Nazi?

Yes, among other things.

The Stars My Destination is great, yes. As are all of Alastair Reynold's books, but they're probably a bit too hard* aren't they? Most of them are long as well. Anyone looking, don't be put off by them mostly in the same universe ('Revelation Space'), they're also mostly independent of each other.

I will add the first Gap Series book by Stephen Donaldson - while it's a 5 book series, the first is a standalone novella. If I can be bothered, I'll go and look on my shelf to get the proper title ("The Gap Into Madness", possibly). "The Real Story (The Gap Into Conflict)". Not too bogged down in the technology, lots of character-driven stuff, plenty of action.

* Er, that is "hard sci-fi", spending lots of time being consistent and detailed with the technology, with plenty of extrapolation of current theory into the fantastical distant future, rather than a condescending opinion of the reader's intelligence.

The Gap Series is flippin' brilliant.

Though you wouldn't really know it from the first book.

In my world of science fiction or similar:

1 - Michael Marshall Smith
2 - China Mieville
3 - Jeff Noon
4 - Stephen Donaldson

Though I've probably left some important people out.

His character in How I Met Your Mother is the best sitcom character ever.

I can't believe there hasn't been a 'Shallow HAL' joke in this thread yet.

ohhh, Duh. The Forever War by Joe Haldeman, its about the practicalities of fighting an interstellar war at relativistic distances, and the effects this had on the soldiers.But it's a really good read.

Books over 300 pages should be BANNED!!!11!!11

Anyway Craster will be pleased to know that I took on board his constant pushing of the Abnett Warhammer books and got one out of the library. Mainly because I found loads of them in the paperbacks section.

Interestingly my (official central town uber) library never keeps the paper back books in order. They have maybe 500 paperback books in total. Probably less. I once asked why they weren't in order the reply was that it was just too difficult. More difficult than the thousands of other books they keep in order in the hardback section?

I also took out this necropolis book or something because I liked the cover. Everyone knows a good cover means a great book right?

Third vote for "The Stars my Destination". Good one. Also "Feersum Enjin" (not sure of the spelling) by Iain (M?) Banks, which kinda does the cyberpunky thing, but you might be put off by the character who is written entirely phonetically. Though if you've read PKD, you should be used to a little strangeness.

I like Heinlein, but I find that while some of his stuff is fantastic ("Puppet Masters", "Starship Troopers"), some of it is the most turgid dirty old man's fantasy shite I've ever read ("Number of the Beast", "Farnham's Freehold"). He also has a penchant for having his characters suddenly disrobe for no reason other than Heinlein himself being a nudist; it has no bearing at all on the plot and reminds me of RTD dropping gay jokes into Doctor Who every five minutes because he's got an Agenda-With-A-Capital-A. It's bearable in his early books, but by "Number of the Beast" his stories consisted of characters getting naked, examining each other's "teats", and arguing about who should be captain of the spaceship now like school children. Utter dross.

Hmm, are they stored on carosel or on the shelf? If they're integrated onto the shelf, they really should be ordered. If they're on carosels for space reasons then they're a pain in the arse to order and a budget-cut understaffed library might have difficulty trying to keep them right, and so decide not to. (There's a lot of stuff we have to do other than shelving, y'see. As mad as it may seem. Though there are some lazy staff out there who don't pull their weight, natch.)

Our thrillers and paperback crime on carosels don't get ordered, y'see. They just get mixed up too fast, people take 'em off and don't put them back in the right place. Gagh.

Glad there's more love out there for Stars..., and I wouldn't say it's a hard read, personally. Not a light one, but easy to slip into and drift through. A second vote from me for Forever War, which is awesome.

And books bigger than 300 pages banned? Noes! What about my precious Mervyn Peake and Susanna Clarke, eh? And American Gods by Neil Gaiman? And Dune? Stop that crazy talk, right there!

Not read it, but that bit sounds hilarious.

Had no idea he was a nudist, guess him and Paul Vehoven DO have something in common other than Starship Troopers, then! And I recall a lot of nudity in Puppet Masters, but that was plot explainable. But yes, you're right on that front. And wasn't Farnham's Freehold immensely racist?

I wish it was just one bit, but it's the whole book. 550-odd pages spent arguing about who should be captain now, and who should be co-pilot, and should X obey the orders of Captain Y if this is a democracy, and shouldn't they vote, and should X call Y "Captain" or "Commander" or "dear", and shouldn't it be a dictatorship instead of a democracy, and if X argues with Y again he'll be thrown off the ship (despite the fact that X and Y have been married for 40 years) and oh no! All of the clothes have disappeared.

The first half of Farnham's Freehold is virtually identical - it's just Heinlein working out his weird fantasies (ie. being locked in a small room with a group of naked women who all want to sleep with him, despite one of them being his daughter) with the characters arguing hysterically about who's boss now and anyone who argues will be shot, even if that character is the boss' son. It's a lot like the male version of a Virginia Woolfe novel. The characters are totally irrational, unlikeable and have stupid, pointless arguments when there are far more important things to worry about (for Heinlein's characters, that's usually impending death). The only difference is that Woolfe's characters rush off to have a cry or paint a garden scene, whereas Heinlein's characters pull guns on each other or undress.

Nudism and bizarre relationships are pretty much the only themes that run throughout all of his novels. He started out being extremely left-wing but, when he married his last wife, switched to being a staunch right-wing nutter who suggests that, in a nuclear war, "Killing the poorest third [of the global population] is good genetics" (Farnham's Freehold, 1992, p34).

As to whether or not Farnham's Freehold is racist, I'm not sure. It was first published in America in 1964, so if you contextualise it you wouldn't be surprised to find that it was racist. However, Farnham himself (I assume him to be Heinlein's mouthpiece) isn't a racist character. The situation he finds himself in could be read as racist ("Look what would happen if the darkies took over!"), but equally it could be read as a challenge to accepted thinking ("How would you white folks like it if the tables were turned?"). None of the characters, irrespective of skin colour, behaves in a way that could be considered admirable. All of them have good moments and bad moments, but ultimately they're all as unpleasant as each other.

Racist or not, though, I seriously suggest avoiding it. I bought it last week, after thoroughly enjoying his Famous Five in Space novel "Space Cadet", and was bitterly disappointed to discover that it was another Number of the Beast-style waste of money.

On a different note, everyone should read Asimov's "Foundation".