My Favourite Books

This is an incomplete list. A very incomplete list. But I’ll keep on adding titles as they come to me. When I have a link attached to a book’s title, it is not a place where you can buy that book. Instead, I’m providing links to reviews and/or commentaries on and/or about the book in question. Unless otherwise specified, the links will be to Chris Weuve’s excellent site.

It would also be somewhat deceptive to call these “favourites” (although I’m doing just that). I couldn’t possibly list all of my favourites. Instead, these are the books which have affected me in some way, such that I feel compelled to include them....

Science Fiction

Science Fiction was, in many ways, my first introduction to reading. I am exceptionally fortunate that my parents own an extensive collection of science fiction. I am slowly accumulating a matching collection (in numbers, if not perhaps in scope quite yet).

Exordium (Sherwood Smith and Dave Trowbridge)

What can be said about Exordium? Space Opera in the best sense of the word, but with both internal consistency and a better extrapolation of their technology base than a lot of hard SF. Superbly written. Exordium is the series that started me reading grand epic multi-volume SF again.

Exordium is a series of five books: The Phoenix in Flight, Ruler of Naught, A Prison Unsought, The Rifter’s Covenant, and The Thrones of Kronos. Fair warning that it can be hard to find some of these (most notable books 2 and 4, and possibly 3). I bought Book 1 without the others, and spent several frantic months locating the rest.

The Stardancer Series (Spider and Jeanne Robinson)

I’ve always liked Spider’s works, and this trilogy (Stardance, Starseed, and Starmind) is the (surprising, to me at least) proof that his writing is even better in collaboration with his wife (I hadn’t thought it possible for there to be any improvement on his own writing style in isolation).

The Mote in God’s Eye (Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle)

What can I say? This is a classic of the genre, featuring (in my opinion) probably the best-designed alien race in science fiction. The Moties are wonderfully put together, and most of the novel can be considered as an exploration of the implications of intelligent life that operates according to the principles of the Moties. Not to mention, of course, the human societies mentioned and described, which are fairly interesting in their own right.

Luminous, Axiomatic, Diaspora, Quarantine, Permutation City (Greg Egan)

Greg Egan is an Australian writer. Of the books above (all of his which I own so far), Luminous and Axiomatic are short story collections, while Diaspora and Quarantine are novels. While Egan may not be to everyone’s taste, I quite like his style. He tends to play around with new ideas (and their effects) without getting lost in the technology. He has written about pretty much everything (although he tends to prefer fairly near-future with bio- and nanotechnology). I’m not sure I can really describe his works, but that doesn’t stop me from strongly recommending that everyone should read at least one.

Page last updated February 26, 2008

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