Any sci-fi novel recommendations - easy to read

[Albert1981]

The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury. A great book of short stories!

[evolutionaryFan]

Heinlein's name came up already, but I didn't see Friday on anybody's list, and it should be. Good, ripping adventure yarn that includes espionage, military action and space travel all in one story. Seems to me it was also one of the earlist classic Sci-Fi novels with a female protagonist.

Nice! Thanks!

The plot description looks fun... kind of like Bionic Woman and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.

BTW, A. E Van Vogt was mentioned. I googled and found this novel Slan:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slan

This is from 1946. Is this the first novel about artificial persons being hunted down?

[evolutionaryFan]

The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury. A great book of short stories!

Thanks! Will check it out!

[Albert1981]

Thanks! Will check it out!

No problem. Enjoy!

[BeastieRunner]

Right. Well I figure its not science fiction in the sense the OP was looking for, which was my original comment's purpose. I still don't consider it sci fi primarily, even though it has those elements to it. For Mary Shelley, she was really inspired by Darwin's discoveries and philosophical discussions she was having with Byron and P. Shelley about the nature of life. Darwin's discoveries had quite the ripple effect on the known world of the 1800s. You are correct in that Mary Shelley was using methods of the time to write the novel, so it comes across as very 1800s. How could it not? But I still think of it more as a springboard to true scifi than scifi itself.

Compared to War of the Worlds, Dracula, Jekyl and Hyde, and other gothic horror and sci-fi of the time ... It is light on description.

There is a reason it still goes out to high schoolers.

IMHO I find it a great intro to cross genre benders like Herbert, Lovecraft, and others.

[kjn]

Shelley's Frankenstein: Or the Modern Prometheus meets all the criteria one can set for science fiction, so it definitely belongs. Note also that it is more than 200 years old now—first published in 1818, and written in 1816. Though she might hae been inspired by Darwin's grandfather Erasmus Darwin.

Anyway, there is quite the focus on old science fiction here, so here is some more recent stuff (in some cases for some values of recent, like thirty years or so ago).

The Wayfarers series by Becky Chambers, starting with The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet

The Murderbot series by Martha Wells.

The Vorkosigan books by Lois McMaster Bujold. Reading order discussions can be nearly as complex and heated as with Pratchett, but Cordelia's Honor, The Warrior's Apprentice, and Komarr are all good starting points.

John Scalzi's Old Man's War and sequels are good modern takes on the space opera/early military science fiction stories.

Ryk Spoor's Grand Central Arena and sequels feels like a good modern take on the grand galactic EE Smith stories of the 30s.

[evolutionaryFan]

Shelley's Frankenstein: Or the Modern Prometheus meets all the criteria one can set for science fiction, so it definitely belongs. Note also that it is more than 200 years old now—first published in 1818, and written in 1816. Though she might hae been inspired by Darwin's grandfather Erasmus Darwin.

Anyway, there is quite the focus on old science fiction here, so here is some more recent stuff (in some cases for some values of recent, like thirty years or so ago).

The Wayfarers series by Becky Chambers, starting with The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet

The Murderbot series by Martha Wells.

The Vorkosigan books by Lois McMaster Bujold. Reading order discussions can be nearly as complex and heated as with Pratchett, but Cordelia's Honor, The Warrior's Apprentice, and Komarr are all good starting points.

John Scalzi's Old Man's War and sequels are good modern takes on the space opera/early military science fiction stories.

Ryk Spoor's Grand Central Arena and sequels feels like a good modern take on the grand galactic EE Smith stories of the 30s.

Thanks! This thread will give me lots of fun reading!

[Zelena]

The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury. A great book of short stories!

“A Sound of Thunder” is a short story by Ray Bradbury. I don’t know where it has been published in its original version but my cousin liked it very much and he is not a hard core reader.