Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami was a great book - one of my new favorites, if just for the End of the World narrative.
It's futuristic in a way, but I can recommend Metro 2033. And it's sequels, of course.
Fahrenheit 451 is also a great read and is more dystopian but still set in the future.
And one that fits the sci-fi genre requested perfectly is Ender's Game. It's a brilliant read.
“Fairy tales do not tell children that dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children that dragons can be killed.”
— G.K. Chesterton
11-09-2014, 03:14 PM (This post was last modified: 11-09-2014, 04:26 PM by Harmonic.)
The Dark Tower series by Stephen King. It's his best work.
Anything by Niel Gaiman. He wrote Coraline and Star Dust, two great movies... and his books are more amazing.
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. If you love humor and sci-fi, it's a wonderful read. Full of plot-holes and it's all too aware of itself... but man, it's just classic.
And honestly? Hate all you want... on this... the Hunger Games series is amazing. The movies may be decent, but the books are wonderful. They really capture the intensity and scary aspects of that distopian future in a way that the movies will never be able to.
* CappnRob comes in with a pile of French romantic and realist literature * CappnRob sees the request is for military and science fiction only * CappnRob chuckles nervously and shoves his books behind the curtains with a foot
Tom Clancy had some near future books that were pretty good, it's not really sci-fi but Tom Clancy is a good direction to go if you're looking for military books with a lot of politics involved.
I'll also recommend the Halo books. They are much better written than the games and have some very cool story arcs. There are some gaps in between the books that take place in the games but my friend read them without playing Halo and she's understood the story pretty well. Very cool universe too.
Lastly, there is this book I read recently after a minor period where I was fascinated by the idea of military exo-skeltons/armor. Armor by John Steakly is the name. It's got a lot in common with Starship Troopers, the settings feel very familiar. Armor is focused a bit more on the psychological repercussions of fighting in an era when war is all people know. I really liked it.
The Lost Fleet series by Jack Campbell is a good read. Depicts space-combat as it likely would be, rather then the more common 'slow ships and fighter carriers that tends to be the mainstream of sci-fi) while still having enough of the actual 'fiction' side of Sci-fi to be fun.
My husband has been reading Tom Clancy and really enjoys him. I'm just trying to find some new ideas since he has been running out of books he likes to read.
If he's been enjoying Tom Clancy, I'd recommend Robert Ludlum to him. Ludlum is more about espionage and thrillers than military and politics but the two have a very similar feel and writing style.
Does it have to be fiction? If not, then I highly recommend Michio Kaku's Physics of the Future. It's all futorology speculative theory, but it examines a lot of the things that may be possible in the post-singularity society. None of it may come true, of course, but it's still fun to think about.
Spoiler:
Video/Audio embedding in signatures is disabled. To enter the URL as link, please use the "amoff" MyCode. [amoff]URL[/amoff]
I've sent some books to him but trying to line up some more.
He's read/rreceived the dune, dark tower, hunger and potter series. He's looking for something more fantasy now. Like lotr/hobbit esque as he's read them before. Also as long as they come in paperback only.
Thanks!