Two great books

[Locutus]

I have two great books that I believe everyone here would enjoy.

1) Old Man's War by John Scalzi - Think Starship Troopers with (slightly) less politics, and featuring really old people. It's a quick read, and part 1 of a trilogy, including The Ghost Brigades (which is currently between printings) and The Last Colony, which is in hardcover right now. (I'm going to a Scalzi signing tonight, so that made me think about this.)

2) Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan - Sci-Fi noir with a Blade Runner feel. Explores the concept of identity and perception with a Sam Spade-ish flair.


I highly recommend both of these books.

[Duffster]

Old man space marines....sounds interesting. I will have to pick that one up.


Duffster

[PepperDude]

Hey Locutus, I like reading sci-fi but I stil haven't gotten very interested in military sci-fi. Do you have any suggestions as to what may definitely catch my interest?

[Locutus]

Well, Altered Carbon is not military scifi, so I can't recommend that one highly enough. I loved Chindi and Polaris by Jack McDevitt. If you go in for something a little harder, the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson is a tough but compelling and rewarding read. Anything Philip K. Dick. Anything. And while it is military in a sense, I still recommend Old Man's War, because it's not really military in that it discusses tactics, etc. It's about the people in the conflict, not the conflict itself, mostly.

[3 Ducks in a Man Costume]

I second the P.K. Dick recommendation, especially if you're looking for nonmilitary science fiction. My advice for his books would be to start off with something like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, The Man in the High Castle, or Counter-Clock World. They're pretty solid and levelheaded. With titles like Eye in the Sky, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldrich, and Confessions of a Crap Artist, the level of mind-bending weirdness rises rapidly.

Also, just FYI, John de Lancie wrote a book some number of years ago called Soldier of Light. Not the best book ever written, but if one were looking for a title by a Star Trek actor, well, there you go.