book collection - reccommendations?

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Sooner Boomer

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My sister's youngest daughter is graduating this spring with a BS in Mech. Engr. I'm trying to put together a collection of science fiction books as a graduation present. I did the same for her older sister a few years ago. Below are a few I've got on the list. She also likes horror, so H.P. Lovecraft is on the list. My biggest limitation is that I've got to do this on the cheap - either used books or something I can trade/barter for.

The list so far:

Heinlein:
Citizen of the Galaxy
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
Starship Troopers
The Puppet Masters

John Scalzi:
Old Man's War
Zoe's Tale

John Varley:
Blue Champagne

Larry Niven:
Fallen Angels

Alan Dean Foster:
Alien
Jed the Dead

Kelly Armstrong:
Bitten

Neal Stephenson:
Snow Crash
The Diamond Age

William Gibson:
Burning Chrome
Neuromancer

I've already given her Asimov's Foundation trilogy. I was paring down my collection and gave her family all of my Andre Norton books several years ago, along with a large collection of Analog magazines. I gave her sister Varley's Titan/Wizard/Demon. A lot of this stuff is older books, and they're getting harder to find. Only as a very last resort will I giver he *my* copy of these books (don't know if I lover her that much...).

List relevance - she's been offered a job at the Huntsville Arsenal doing rocket analysis. Waiting for the paperwork to go through.
 
Neil Stephenson's newer stuff is also really good, Anathem is probably my favorite book of his. Also check out Arthur C. Clark's Rama series starting with Rendezvous with Rama. Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft is a classic. Also look for Hyperion by Dan Simmons, its got really good Horror and sci fi elements. It's the start of a four book series that gets more sci-fi and less horror as it goes on.
 
Have you peeked at Alibris.com? It's a great used book site that sources books from sellers all over the country, sorted by condition and price.

You should def find your niece a copy of Ubik by PK Dick.
 
Frank Herbert:
Dune

Edgar Rice Burroughs
A Princess of Mars


Gotta read Dune and the sequels (that Herbert himself wrote) are good, if a little uneven. The same cannot be said of Princess of Mars; don't bother with the sequels at all, or if you must, only the first two.
 
Gregory Benford, Timescape, I am sending this message from the future, read this book you will thank me later.

Michener, Space, a historical fiction in the way only Michener can.

An alternate history, the first woman to walk on Mars...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_(novel)
 
I am a big fan of David Weber.

On Basilisk Station: This is the start of the Honor Harrington series. Was up to 13 books last I heard. Really good story, character development, future tech.

Mutineer's Moon: Series of four (Dahak series). Again well written, and interesting alien species.

Path of the Fury, or In Fury Born (later version): Single book, not a series. An ex-marine (female, augmented) goes out for revenge after her family is killed and joins forces with an ancient Greek god and an AI spaceship. Three very strong personalities working together.

If you get reading any of these you will likely be hooked. You know you have been "Weber'd" when it gets to about 2am and you can't put the book down yet!

Greatly entertaining, watching the future tech evolving is good to see, especially the missile technology. Expect evil characters and twists in the plot when you least expect it :facepalm: .

https://www.davidweber.net/books
 
These should all be available second-hand:

Octavia Butler Adulthood Rites and Wild Seed

Ursula LeGuin Lathe of Heaven

David Brin's Uplift books and Earth (and the Postman -- which ought to be required reading for folks born since 1980)

Roger Zelazny Creatures of Light and Darkness and Lord of Light

Julian May's Galactic Milieu series (start her with the Many Colored Land)

Larry Niven's Ringworld books...

And John Brunner's Shockwave Rider and Jagged Orbit -- where he pretty much exactly predicted the future we got and in which he invented all of the tropes for which William Gibson gets too much of the credit.
 
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The Silo series by Hugh Howie; Wool, Shift, Dust. An excellent series.
Tolkien? The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings. May not be Sci Fi, technically, but very good anyway.
Macroscope by Piers Anthony; good copies may be hard to find...
Stephen R Donaldson mainly the Gap series. Awesome space adventure/saga. 5 books.
 
I am a big fan of David Weber.

On Basilisk Station: This is the start of the Honor Harrington series. Was up to 13 books last I heard. Really good story, character development, future tech.

Mutineer's Moon: Series of four (Dahak series). Again well written, and interesting alien species.

Path of the Fury, or In Fury Born (later version): Single book, not a series. An ex-marine (female, augmented) goes out for revenge after her family is killed and joins forces with an ancient Greek god and an AI spaceship. Three very strong personalities working together.

If you get reading any of these you will likely be hooked. You know you have been "Weber'd" when it gets to about 2am and you can't put the book down yet!

Greatly entertaining, watching the future tech evolving is good to see, especially the missile technology. Expect evil characters and twists in the plot when you least expect it :facepalm: .

https://www.davidweber.net/books


I'm a huge David Weber fan - have all of his books in hardback. Time to start re-readiing HH series in prep for new volume in the series due out this Fall. Latest book of HH universe short stories is in the mail today.
 
Frederik Pohl -- greatest sci-fi writer of all time. Stephen King -- greatest horror writer of all time. Right there is over a hundred books.
 
I second "Hitchhiker's Guide".

Also - much more contemporary - The Martian by Andy Weir. Much more there than in the film. (but it would be R for language, which is a consideration, I suppose.)
 
Isaac Asimov's Robot series:

The Caves of Steel
The Naked Sun
The Robots of Dawn

A lot of what we think of in terms of robots and AI came from him and these are mandatory reading in my mind for any serious fan of science fiction.

A for Andromeda (novelisation) is also great reading and very applicable in terms of SETI.


Tony
 
Isaac Asimov's Robot series:

The Caves of Steel
The Naked Sun
The Robots of Dawn

Everyone who reads 1 of Asimov's series (Foundation or Robots) MUST, repeat, MUST read the other series! I cannot say more without spoiler alerts! My jaw was dropped tho...!

+1 for The Martian, and ERB John Carter series.
 
These should all be available second-hand:

Octavia Butler Adulthood Rites and Wild Seed

Ursula LeGuin Lathe of Heaven

David Brin's Uplift books and Earth (and the Postman -- which ought to be required reading for folks born since 1980)

Roger Zelazny Creatures of Light and Darkness and Lord of Light

Julian May's Galactic Milieu series (start her with the Many Colored Land)

Larry Niven's Ringworld books...

And John Brunner's Shockwave Rider and Jagged Orbit -- where he pretty much exactly predicted the future we got and in which he invented all of the tropes for which William Gibson gets too much of the credit.
You can pick my books out any time.

May I recommend A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness In the Sky, both by Vernor Vinge?
 
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I liked Kon Tiki. It wasn't SiFi. Those dorks really built a balsa raft and had an adventure. They even macguyvered a refrigeration system out in the Pacific Ocean from just junk. It's a cheap book too. And I'm a mech too. I never cared for SiFi. I liked the Real Fi dorks that did stuff. NASA has all these technical documents of like four hundred pages of test flight programs, those were the best and free. They had the X-15 have two pumps mechanically vibrate and interfere with each other as a engineering problem once. I got a laugh.

The Right Stuff was another classic.
 
A Wrinkle in time by Madeleine L'Engle
20'000 leagues under the sea by Jules Vern
Rex
 
and a couple by Lee Correy
contraband rocket (may be hard to find)
Shuttle Down
Rex
 
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