this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2023
9 points (100.0% liked)

Science Fiction

13472 readers
1 users here now

Welcome to /c/ScienceFiction

December book club canceled. Short stories instead!

We are a community for discussing all things Science Fiction. We want this to be a place for members to discuss and share everything they love about Science Fiction, whether that be books, movies, TV shows and more. Please feel free to take part and help our community grow.

  1. Be civil: disagreements happen, but that doesn’t provide the right to personally insult others.
  2. Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, ableist, or advocating violence will be removed.
  3. Spam, self promotion, trolling, and bots are not allowed
  4. Put (Spoilers) in the title of your post if you anticipate spoilers.
  5. Please use spoiler tags whenever commenting a spoiler in a non-spoiler thread.

Lemmy World Rules

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
9
Looking for a good Sci Fi Novel available on Project Gutenberg (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
24 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Been out of work for a while so buying books is out the question (yeah, I get there's always the library, but I don't like it for a lot of reasons).

I like how PG has free books. I realize I'm not going to find top-tier modern writers on PG, but I'm open to suggestions of good reads.

What I look for in sci fi:

  • An idea to chew on; something that stays with me even after I turn the last page.
  • Some emotional intrigue; I want to feel what the characters feel.

What I like to avoid:

  • Technobabble. I like a good story; I don't want to spend half the book understanding how the ship works. (I found Frank Herbet was good with avoiding technobabble...he often obeyed the rule of "show don't tell")

  • Stock characters. Gimme some depth.

A few I've read so far that I'd consider "passable" are Off on a Comet by Jules Vern (I only listen to about 2/3 of this on librivox) and Space Prison by Tom Godwin (although the plot is pretty simplistic).

I just finished Frankenstein. A lot of people think its The Greatest Novel. It was kinda meh. I see why people would get excited about it, but it didn't grab me like it does other people.

Any suggestions?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Three books I can happily recommend:

A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs One of the many influences on Star Wars https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/62

Gladiator by Philip Wylie Supposedly an influence on the creation of Superman and modern superheroes https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/42914

Flatland by Edwin Abbott Abbott Philosophical and mathematical and kinda touching all at once https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/201

And while not sci-fi, if you're into superheroes, Scarlet Pimpernel and Zorro are fun early secret-identify stories:

The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/60

Mark of Zorro https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/61620