utdoc43 Loc: Pittsburgh, PA

Thanks all! I've been a "deer in the headlights " lately in choosing my summer reading. I'm good to go now! I will mention that I require myself annually returning to Orwell "1984"--spooky!

ngc1514 Loc: Atlanta, Ga., Lancaster, Oh. and Stuart, Fl.

Added Nesbo's name to my new author list. Thanks for the suggestion. Have read the "Girl with..." series and they were good. Larrson definitely died too young.

ngc1514 Loc: Atlanta, Ga., Lancaster, Oh. and Stuart, Fl.

I used to consume large quantities of science fiction, but find I'm reading much less of it as I get older. Part of the problem is my main source - Atlanta's Science Fiction and Mystery Bookshop went the way of so many non-chain book stores and closed it's doors almost 8 years ago.

I like my science fiction hard, do not like most fantasy stuff and don't want to get involved in an endless series that might not come to resolution before I shuffle off this mortal coil. Could walk in to the SFMBS and ask Mark Stevens what was new and good and he make some recommendations.

That said... I thought Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep with the concept of changing laws of physics depending on how close you were to the center of a galaxy to be one of the most original books I'd read in a long time. My favorite authors include Harlan Ellison (if you were not there at the time of the publication, you'll never appreciate what he did for the field with his Dangerous Visions and Again, Dangerous Visions books! Robert Forward for having the imagination to make you believe life was possible on the surface of a neutron star and Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle for just all-around great collaborations.

Favorite horror authors have to start off with King and Clive Barker. One of the worst disasters to hit the genre was Barker moving to Hollywood. King brought vampires to a small Maine town, Robert McCammon, in They Thirst, have them take over the whole city of Los Angeles! It's one of the few books where I found myself on the side of the vampires, but that's probably an east coast vs. west coast thing. :D

Haven't read anything by Hutson. He's now on the new author list.

ngc1514 Loc: Atlanta, Ga., Lancaster, Oh. and Stuart, Fl.

WOW! Great list and hard to add much to it. If you liked American Caesar and A World Lit only by Fire, I hope you've read Manchester's autobiographical, Goodbye, Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War and Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century. While Manchester selects representative time frames in the Medieval World, Tuchman concentrates on one century - shattered by the Black Plague, war and schism in the Roman Church - and a single nobleman, Enguerrand de Coucy, who was central to many of the events between England and France. Great book!

The Brian Greene books are excellent as is Kaku. Pushing beyond the limits of what is known today and offering a glimpse of where science might be tomorrow is fascinating. There are so few authors who can take what is mostly described in mathematical expressions and make it comprehensible for the rest of us.

I have the Jobs bio on my night stand. Read Isaacson's bio of Einstein a few months back and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Vonnegut is a favorite, Heinlein not so much any more.

For an interesting overview of the Russian czars, I liked The Romanovs: Autocrats of All the Russias by W. Bruce Lincoln.

I've added a couple of your books to the reading list and thanks for the suggestions.

So many books and so little time expresses it perfectly!

garthhill Loc: Watertown, TN

One Second After is a 2009 novel by American writer William R. Forstchen. Cited on the floor of Congress as a book all Americans should read. A story which can be all too terrifyingly real...a story in which one man struggles to save his family and his small North Carolina town after America loses a war, in one second, a war that will send America back to the Dark Ages...A war based upon a weapon, an Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP). A weapon that may already be in the hands of our enemies.

gym Loc: Athens, Georgia

If you like quick wit, word play, and suspense, then anything by John Sanford.

ngc1514 Loc: Atlanta, Ga., Lancaster, Oh. and Stuart, Fl.

I love the post-apocalyptic genre and just downloaded the book to the iPad. Hope it's a good one.

ngc1514 Loc: Atlanta, Ga., Lancaster, Oh. and Stuart, Fl.

Sanford or Sandford? Are you talking about the Lucas Davenport books, the Prey series?

John Sanford was another author who died back in 2003.

Spelling counts! :lol:

amyinsparta Loc: White county, TN

Yes, most sci fi is actually fantasy these days. The only sci fi I've read recently is Philip Dick's works, which is as much philosophy as it is sci fi. However, don't think the movies made from his short stories are like the original. They aren't. Blade Runner, The Adjustment Bureau, Total Recall, Minority Report, and others don't do the stories justice.

I would also recommend Gregg Braden and David Hawkins for discussions of quantum physics.

FredCDobbs Loc: Los Angeles area.

I'll second Nesbo. Good stories and excellent characters. Hard to figure out who done it.

FredCDobbs Loc: Los Angeles area.

Elmore Leonard, Loren Estleman, Robert B. Parker.
Down to the Sea, Henderson

Dan821 Loc: Traveling........

Any of the Harlan Coben books are excellent. I just finished "Miracle Cure" which was one of his earliest works. Quite interesting plot.
Also the "Girl with the Dragon Tatoo", "Skygods: The Fall of Pan Am", and "One Second After", "The Big Short". Too many to list....

ngc1514 Loc: Atlanta, Ga., Lancaster, Oh. and Stuart, Fl.

Just for fun... a few years ago I decided to reread some of the old collections of science fiction I recalled reading as a kid. Got up on the Abebooks used book site and ordered 5 old - late 40s and early 50s - collections edited by August Derleth: Beachheads in Space, The Other Side of the Moon, Strange Ports of Call, Worlds of Tomorrow and Beyond Time and Space. I think I got all 5 of them for less than $3 each and consider it money well spent.

Some of the stories remained as fresh as the day they were written. A few others were absolute stinkers that should have disappeared into the wastebasket. But they were all fun to read and, for a few hours, I relived my misspent youth.

My favorite book on Quantum Physics is Nick Herbert's Quantum Reality. It's old enough to concentrate on the Copenhagen Interpretation while today the emphasis is passing to Everett's Many World interpretation. I'm not real fond of those who try to cram 5 pounds of physics and 5 pounds of mysticism into the same 5 pound sack. This includes books like The Tao of Physics and The Dancing Wu-Li Masters.

I think one of the best things is the shift from the Copenhagen to the Many Worlds interpretations because it does away with the central role of observation in the collapse of the wave function in the Copenhagen. All quantum probabilities are realized.

Yes, the Moon DOES exist even if no one is looking at it. This is, as I see it, the broken link in the chain attempting to tie science into new age "stuff." I never did buy that "create your own reality" thing.

I understand a lot of people do.

jkm757 Loc: San Diego, Ca.

If you like quirky crime stories Carl Hiaasen and Elmore Leonard are worth checking out. For fantasy I highly recommend Tad Williams Otherland series.

grock Loc: South Carolina

"Lone Survivor" By Marcus Luttrell The most intense and hard to put down book I have ever read. About his life, Seal Training and the Seal Team 10 Mission that he survived.