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Good hard sci-fi ebooks?

Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2012 2:12 pm
by Perturabo
I just bought a reader and I'm wondering if there are any besides Through Struggle the Stars.

RE: Good hard sci-fi ebooks?

Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2012 3:34 pm
by SLAAKMAN
Good idea. Ill look for some.

RE: Good hard sci-fi ebooks?

Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2012 5:21 pm
by Brigz
Try "The Lost Fleet" series by Jack Campbell. Great space combat and theme.

RE: Good hard sci-fi ebooks?

Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2012 5:23 pm
by carnifex
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_R._Donaldson

Scroll down to The Gap Cycle. I highly recommend these.

RE: Good hard sci-fi ebooks?

Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2012 5:46 pm
by JamesM
You can not go past David Weber's Honor Harrington series.

RE: Good hard sci-fi ebooks?

Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2012 8:22 pm
by Jevhaddah_Slitherine
I iz reading EE Doc Smiths Skylark series atm... I am a sucker for very early and early Sci-fi [:D]

Cheers

Jev

RE: Good hard sci-fi ebooks?

Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2012 9:53 pm
by Perturabo
ORIGINAL: jamesm

You can not go past David Weber's Honor Harrington series.
That's not hard sci-fi.
ORIGINAL: Dave Briggs

Try "The Lost Fleet" series by Jack Campbell. Great space combat and theme.
"The Lost Fleet"
Lol, his ebook files are more expensive than those embedded in paper readers.

I had the first part. I gave it to a local library as there was a promotion where they promised to buy the rest of fantasy/sci-fi series, when one donates a book.
So, they have bought the whole "The Lost Fleet" series but someone stole the whole series from the library before I got to rent them. Along with two other books that I have donated and some other very good series that I wanted to read[:@].
ORIGINAL: carnifex

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_R._Donaldson

Scroll down to The Gap Cycle. I highly recommend these.
Lol, his ebook files are more expensive than those embedded in paper readers.

Also, is it really hard sci-fi. I mean with aliens and stuff? Are the ships and weapon system and stuff based on current understanding of physics?

Anyway, when I talk about hard sci-fi I mean something that won't make an Atomic Rocket reader cringe and when I talk about ebooks, I mean an ebooks where the price is decreased by the cost of providing a paper reader, not increased.
ORIGINAL: Jevhaddah

I iz reading EE Doc Smiths Skylark series atm... I am a sucker for very early and early Sci-fi [:D]

Cheers

Jev
Are they on Gutenberg? I remember enjoying his Triplanetary.

I also love retro sci-fi. What would you recommend from the very early and early stuff?

RE: Good hard sci-fi ebooks?

Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2012 12:53 am
by VPaulus
I've always loved Heinlein's "Starship Trooper". I hated the Paul Verhoeven movie.

E.E. "Doc" Smith is a must also. But they aren't good ebook editions that I know. :(

RE: Good hard sci-fi ebooks?

Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2012 4:09 am
by nicwb
I would recommend,

Richard Morgan

"Altered Carbon" followed by "Broken Angels" and "Woken Furies"

or

Neil Asher's "Polity SEries" of novels

If its militaryt in tone then definitely anything David Weber or perhaps David Drake.

RE: Good hard sci-fi ebooks?

Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2012 10:43 am
by Perturabo
ORIGINAL: VPaulus

I've always loved Heinlein's "Starship Trooper". I hated the Paul Verhoeven movie.
It's quite awful that they have hijacked the i.p.

Now there will never be a decent movie/animated adaptation of Starship Troopers.
ORIGINAL: VPaulus

E.E. "Doc" Smith is a must also. But they aren't good ebook editions that I know. :(
http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/s#a9515
I don't know what's their quality, though.
ORIGINAL: nicwb

I would recommend,

Richard Morgan

"Altered Carbon" followed by "Broken Angels" and "Woken Furies"

or

Neil Asher's "Polity SEries" of novels

If its militaryt in tone then definitely anything David Weber or perhaps David Drake.
More stuff that costs more as a file than when as the paper reader version.

I'm not interested in anything that isn't at least 2/3 less expensive than the paper reader version. I have just spent 300PLN on an my own hardware and I didn't do it so that I would pay them more for reading on my own hardware than for them providing me with hardware to read it.

RE: Good hard sci-fi ebooks?

Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2012 11:27 am
by VPaulus
ORIGINAL: Perturabo


http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/s#a9515
I don't know what's their quality, though.
For me it's important the look & feel of a ebook, for example with no space between paragraphs, etc.

BTW, Calibre, it's a software tool that any ebook owner must have. It's free and it really helps a lot in converting, formatting, cataloguing and managing your ebook colection.
http://calibre-ebook.com/

RE: Good hard sci-fi ebooks?

Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2012 1:05 pm
by Vasquez
I liked John Ringo`s "Invasion" Series (military Sci-Fi). Not sure if they are avaiable for e-books.

"General, Take your second corps, whipe the invasors south of the potomac, relief the First Corps and cover Washington"
"Uhm. Who are we? The Waffen-SS?"

=)

RE: Good hard sci-fi ebooks?

Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2012 1:43 pm
by fvianello
"The Forever War" by Joe Haldeman. One of the best ever hard sci-fi novels. I've read it, umh, like 5 times.

RE: Good hard sci-fi ebooks?

Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2012 2:55 pm
by bean5671


try http://www.stephen-baxter.com/
hopefully you understand a little physics if not you will learn a bit

RE: Good hard sci-fi ebooks?

Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2012 3:26 pm
by Jevhaddah_Slitherine
The EE Dpc Smith Skylark books are on Manybooks and Guttenberg... I think.. there is a website with ALL of them set up by fan, but I am unsure of copyright issues...

Cheers

Jev

RE: Good hard sci-fi ebooks?

Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2012 4:31 pm
by Perturabo
ORIGINAL: VPaulus

BTW, Calibre, it's a software tool that any ebook owner must have. It's free and it really helps a lot in converting, formatting, cataloguing and managing your ebook colection.
http://calibre-ebook.com/
Can it help in stuff like converting a wiki article or a web tutorial into an ebook?
ORIGINAL: bean5671



try http://www.stephen-baxter.com/
hopefully you understand a little physics if not you will learn a bit
Meh. More stuff that costs the same or more for a file than for the paper reader version.

Though, it seems that libraries in my city have 13 of his books. I'll check them out, thanks.

RE: Good hard sci-fi ebooks?

Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2012 5:37 pm
by VPaulus
ORIGINAL: Perturabo

Can it help in stuff like converting a wiki article or a web tutorial into an ebook?
As you know there are several different types of ebooks format and the ereaders don't read all formats. So with converting I meant converting between those types. But I would give it a try because one of the formats is htmlz which is nothing more than a zipped html page.

You've also Sigil, which edit/create Epub format from html and xml sources, but it's not very easy to work with:
http://code.google.com/p/sigil/

RE: Good hard sci-fi ebooks?

Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 2:16 am
by Southernland
Man plus was reasonably "hard scifi" in its day I think

okay it's not hard sci fi but I have to reccomend Peter F. Hamiltons Night's dawn trilogy for sheer scope (if nothing else they were released as 9 books in the States) or the Patrick Tilley's amtrak wars series (6 books)

RE: Good hard sci-fi ebooks?

Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 3:15 am
by Erik Rutins
Just as a side note, if you haven't read "Through Struggle the Stars" yet, it's available here:

http://www.thehumanreach.net/

... and a sequel is on the way for 2013.

Regards,

- Erik

RE: Good hard sci-fi ebooks?

Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 10:12 am
by martok
Just about anything by Clarke or Asimov would qualify (especially the latter's Robot and Foundation series), although I don't know if they're available in ebook form. I also second the recommendation of Weber's Honor Harrington novels.

A couple folks I know also really like Poul Anderson. I'm not terribly familiar with his work, although I did read (and enjoy) Harvest of Stars.