It seems you like distopian novels as do I. Here are a few good ones:


Anthem, Rand
Atlas Shrugged, Rand
Fountainhead, Rand

Get through these last two and you wont be the same person you were before you read them.

Anathem - A stunning achievement of hard science fiction. This is how science fiction used to be, matched to the literary elevation of Dune.

Since you like Larry Niven, I'd recommend his collaborations with Jerry Pournelle, especially "The Mote In God's Eye."

I did better than list the author's name, I gave the link to the book on Amazon so he could see the author, the reviews, and order it.

As for my comparison to Dune:

Dune is one of the more amazing efforts in "world building" on par with Lord of the Rings. Like these two works, Anathem builds a unique vocabulary, though Stephenson does it much more seamlessly than Herbert. Like Dune, Anathem builds not only a world, but synthesizes realistic cultures from extrapolation (in the case of Dune), and abstraction in the case of Anathem.

It is true that the narrative structures of Dune and Anathem are completely different. As are their messages as they speak to the reader. Dune's Big Idea brings together late 50's and early 60's drug culture, then new ideas on genetics, Herbert's own studies in environmental conservancy, and his studies of Zen mysticism and Arabic cultures. Herbert's underlying themes of religion-as-political-tool, tyranny, and freedom also shine through.

As you mention, Stephenson breathes life into Platonic Idealism through the lens of modern physics and mathematics. As you read, you gain an education, in much the same way you do regrading desert ecology from reading Dune. These are the literary similarities I was referring to in spite of the fact that the two works are vastly different.

As someone who has never read the Ringworld series. How is Niven's pros? Is it quite an easy read or is one a slog through the pages with a lot of heavy ideas to digest?

I'm looking for some more bedtime reading now I've driven through my current pile of Christmas books.

Are they actually in sequence? Or if i skip the books you said to avoid I wont be missing out on essential plot and so on?

I'll get the first book and give it a whirl on my tablet then.

Always willing to try something new.

Haha it is very possible you and I were in the same room together

Neal Stephenson Reamde - Chinese hacker gold farmers in a WOW-like MMO, plus Russian mafia, plus some terrorists, plus the usual likable Stephenson characters. And the usual laughs along the way.

Oh so much this. Dresden series is wonderful!

Would also recommend
Titan, Wizard and Demon (3 books) by John Varley.

So I got ringworld last night. It's not a bad book. About 100 pages in. I must say though that it reeks of 1970s SF. This isnt a bad thing, just my god. I'd forgotten what old SF was like.

Still a good read though.

I had an "aha" moment just recently when I read Joe Haldeman's Forever Warfor the first time.

I hear Satan is an awesome author, but where did you get a copy... Oh wait, did you mean Cryptonomicon? Yes, that was a good book, more historical fiction than science fiction though.

I skipped the Baroque Cycle and seemed to have read the best ones:
- Snow Crash: With a main character named Hiro Protagonist, how can you go wrong?
- Diamond Age: Nanotech meets neo-Victorian society... awesome (complete with techno-hippies naturally)
- Cryptonomicon: World War II, cryptography, the Phillipines, and little Douglas MacArthur Shaftoe... but no science fiction.
- Anathem: See previous recommendation and analysis. Probably Stephenson's greatest achievement to date.

I've also read the stuff he's written as Stephen Bury but none of it is as memorable.

Oh lordie. I had a brain flatulence and said the name of the book which should not be mentioned. I'd better stay docked up for at least the rest of the day.

The Moon is a harsh Mistress - Heinlein
Australia, on the moon! If someone tells you he was a fascist because he wrote starship troopers, have them read this one.

Douglas Adams is also well worth reading, because his books are the answer to life, the universe and everything.

The Dirk Gently books were very good, but the Hitchhikers books have become embedded in the psyche of popular culture and gained a life all of their own, especially in the age of the internet.

Ender's Game and the entire Ender Saga. Space travel, psychology, war, science fiction... it should fit well on any EVE player's bookshelf.