Ender's Game

[Buck Turgidson]

I am so fucking excited about this.  I know it is a ways off, buy the preview looks amazing, and this is one of my top 3 books of all time.  This is definitely the best book written by an anti-queer Mormon Jesus freak.

ENDER'S GAME -- Trailer

[Mogar]

i will be going to this midnight screening.

[Arsenal 10]

Looks good. You're right though, November is a long way away.

[Buck Turgidson]

This was actually a prequel to Speaker for the Dead, which would make a wierdass movie.  If I recall there were Ewok-like creatures that turned into trees and talked to each other when they died.  I mean, if it were a competition to see just how much more hokey you could make Ewoks, I might get it.  That said, it made for an awesome book.

My favorite novels competing for first place:

1) Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
1) The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand
1) Armor - John Steakly
1) Starship Troopers - Robert Heinlein
1) A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
1) Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

Is your taste as erudite as mine?

[shahman]

The rest of the series was removed from Ender's Game by (literally) eons.  They are in a different setting, and consist of different themes and ideas. 

Personally, I also loved Ender's Shadow.

[Buck Turgidson]

Not all of the series - one of them at least was set before the Bugger war.  Incidentally, wasn't that Ender's Shadow?

I only really liked Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead...  Now if he threw in some very oral bi cheerleaders, some of the rest of the series might have held my attention, but I suppose that was unlikely.

[Ogaden]

Orson Scott Card
Ayn Rand
Robert Heinlein

Card and Heinlein are both favorites of mine too despite being deranged in some way
Rand's stuff I haven't read.

[Buck Turgidson]

What else would you put on the same level?  I am always hunting for my next book, like Leo hunts for a girl to turn him down.

[Mogar]

Shadow was set in the same exact time period, and some of that storyline will be included into the movie, Earth Unaware and Earth Afire are set before ender's game in the first formic war.

[Buck Turgidson]

2 of the books on my list were by authors who wrote only one book.  One of them then killed himself.

Can you guess which one?

[cctmsp13]

Card said Speaker of the Dead was unfilmable, so I don't think Ender's Game will get a sequel, to your challenge

1) Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card - wrote speaker and bunch of other stuff
2) The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand - wrote Atlas Shrugged
3) Armor - John Steakly
4) Starship Troopers - Robert Heinlein - wrote lots of things
5) A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
6) Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams - was part of a trilogy

so that leaves #3 and #5.  Since I have a 50/50 chance (and am not going to cheat with Google), I'm going to guess
3) Armor - John Steakly

[cctmsp13]

What else would you put on the same level?  I am always hunting for my next book, like Leo hunts for a girl to turn him down.

I put Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein as the 3 best sci-fi writers (in volume if nothing else), since you have a Heinlein, I'll offer a suggestion from each of the other two

For Clarke I'd suggest "The City and the Stars".  There's another book "Against the Fall of Night" that's basically the same (City was a rewrite of Against, I think City is the better of the two.)

There's a sequel to the above, Beyond the fall of Night, it was written by another author, and is crap, avoid it.

For Asimov, Nemesis

[Buck Turgidson]

John Kennedy Toole wrote his one and only book, A Confederacy of Dunces (name taken from the Jonathan Swift quote), over a period of more than a decade, and then killed himself.  His distraught mother boarded up his room until her old age, and 15 years after his death, when she could not keep up with the house any longer, re-opened the room.  There she found the manuscript, and spent 4 years trying to get publishers to read it.  They all thought she was just a crazy old lady, heartbroken over the death of her son.  Finally an English professor at the University of Mississippi read it and could not believe how good the book was.  He got it published, and it won the Pullitzer Prize the next year.  It is the single funniest book I have ever read, and it is impossible to understand that someone with such an incredible sense of humor could commit suicide...

Armor is a kickass action packed Starship troopers like introspection on the effect of violence on the soldier's heart.  It is really out of this world, and basically consists of 2 connected stories.

I like Clarke too - 2001 was awesome.  I will read the City next (finally getting through Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and it will make my top list too by the looks of it).  I have tried Asimov a few times, but have actually abandoned 3 of his books after getting 1/2 way through.  It was a long time ago, so maybe I should try again with Nemesis.

C'mon - gimme more!

[cctmsp13]

it seems my 50/50 chance failed me

If you liked 2001, there's also 2010. 2061, and 3001.  2010 was pretty good, the others didn't do as well.

Going by where he won his awards, you should also look at "Fountains of Paradise", but that doesn't really seem to fit your tastes.  (It's not as philosophical, basically being a very well done story about a giant engineering project.)

Nemesis is a standalone book, unlike a lot of his that are connected to the Robots-Empire-Foundation Universe, so that may help.

[cctmsp13]

Orson Scott Card
Ayn Rand
Robert Heinlein

Card and Heinlein are both favorites of mine too despite being deranged in some way
Rand's stuff I haven't read.

Not to offend Slug's taste in books, but a lot of Rand's stuff comes down to "Be Independent, Do your own thing, and then be a jerk to everyone else."

[Buck Turgidson]

I haven't read any other Rand, but the Fountainhead offers a spectacular insight into resolve vs compromise.  Strength vs weakness.  Choice vs consequences.  Strength from within vs from outside.  That said, I thought it was arrogant in a few ways - it was pro-artist, and anti-capitalist in so far that making what people want is wrong, you should instead suffer for your art and 'build it and they will come', which has long since been shown to be a failing business proposition.  I agree that she says 'be independent, do your own thing', but I think if anything she thins you should be fair to others on your own terms.  I bet she would deliver a hell of a lecture on negotiation skills.

I know she's a crazy tart - I once read that she left Russia during the revolution, and moved to the US.  When she once was protesting against the US gov't immigration laws at the time, someone told her that if she didn't like America, she should go back to where she came from.  She answered "I chose to come to this country - what did you ever do to earn your citizenship besides being born here?"

I will try Nemesis next.  As for Heinlein, I should have also mentioned Stranger in a Strange Land - that was a weirdass book but I got a huge kick out of the frequent tangents.  I especially loved his critique of Rodin's sculpture of the old woman, where he said something like 'it takes a great artist can make a sculpture of an old woman, with wrinkly skin and worn expression, but only a master could make you see the little girl inside her.'