Best top 10 SCi-Fi for Traveller, & Why

[Liam Devlin]

Originally posted by Solo:
First, Someone mentioned Hamilton's Reality Disfunction series and I'd have to second that vote! A little "fantastic" with the main plot but the universe backdrop is great.

Second, Anyone mention Dickson and his Dorsai series? Best warrior clan in space.

How about Heinlein and Starship Troopers?

Anything by Vernor Vinge but particularly, A Fire Upon the Deep.

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DOH! The Dorsai! I am losin me mind..er memory cells (which Con did I drink them away at?), Gordon Dickson has been mentioned, but maybe not on this post yet. Thanks Solo!

 

[Liam Devlin]

Originally posted by Keith:
Like many of you I've read Heinlein, Hamilton, Clarke and Asimov, but noticed that nobody has mentioned Iain M Banks.

Granted, not a mainstream 'traveller-esque' author in the context you have been discussing, but a brilliant sci-fi writer nevertheless.

If you want an insight into an elegant 'what if?' of (alternative) sci-fi technological capability (particularly with regards to artificial sentience/intelligence and 'self aware' ships and droids) then please give him a read. You won't be disappointed.

Start off with Consider Phlebas, his first sci-fi novel. Then perhaps Player of Games, Use of Weapons and Excession.

That's if you have time, what with all the other books you sem to be devouring..........

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Ian Banks...Hmm. Sounds good read-up fer sentient AI-Virus ships. I'll see what WE have and look im up at the FLBS! And welcome to the boards, Keith! Lots of folks in the UK on this list!

 

[PapaGolfWhiskey]

Dr. Skull
Not to put too fine a point on it. I think LARGE portions of the OTU were um.... Inspired by piper's work.

Pournelle is a Piper protege and writes the forewards for a many of his post suicice reprints.

Piper rates as my TOP READ for traveller fans.

 

[PapaGolfWhiskey]

Piper named his planets after obscure deities.

it seems once man got into intersteller space they'd run out of Graeco/Roman pantheon names with which to name planets and the like.

 

[nefus]

Wow - 5 pages of posts and nobody has mentioned E.E. Doc Smith's Lensmen series. Wowzers people - that stuff is classic! Also how about the Venus Prime series by Paul Preuss(under Arthur Clarke's name)? How about Greg Bear's Eon series? I was very pleased to see somebody mentioned a certaini Stainless Steel Rat though...

 

[Liam Devlin]

Originally posted by nefus:
Wow - 5 pages of posts and nobody has mentioned E.E. Doc Smith's Lensmen series. Wowzers people - that stuff is classic! Also how about the Venus Prime series by Paul Preuss(under Arthur Clarke's name)? How about Greg Bear's Eon series? I was very pleased to see somebody mentioned a certaini Stainless Steel Rat though...

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Welcome aboard the CoTI lists nefus! Good suggestions, and so noted.

 

[plop101]

Well, guess its time to throw in my .02 Cr worth...

Not in any particular order:

H.Beam Piper, Space Viking and Uller Uprising
REQUIRED READING for everyone.

Larry Niven & Steven Barnes, The Descent of Anansi

William Greenleaf, The Tartarus Incident
REQUIRED READING for Scout Service Bureaucrats

Robert A. Heinlein, Friday
REQUIRED READING for Solsec Agents

Frank Herbert, Dune

Greg Bear, Moving Mars

Isaac Asimov, Foundation Series

Brian Daley, The Han Solo Adventures et all

Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odessey, Venus Prime Series
The former for Scouts, the latter for Solsec types.

Stewart Cowley, Spacecraft 2000 to 2100 AD
Starship art and fiction. Gotta love it.

H.G. Wells, War of the Worlds
Props to the Old School. Boo-Yah!

 

[PapaGolfWhiskey]

Damn... you have good choices.

Tarturus Incident rocked. Very Travelleresqe though the tech was a little off. A neat short vignette into a Scout's day gone wrong.

The Stewart Cowely? is he the guy who did the cool but utterly non-canon colour panels for the t4 book?

Is oohh!! I remember that book. back when my Travller was only three books big...

Cowely Art panels with like... a made up history surrounding them.

There was another book Great Battles of the Future or something like that. More Cowely pics with more history. I Actually based ship designs and Traveller Events on those books.. back in the day...

PROPS to you and STars... (and I don't give those out much) Those are Traveller-esque books REALLY worth mentioning.

 

[plop101]

Yeah, here's a web site with lots of nice stuff on the TTA books.
Terran Trade Authority

I only had the first one, but from what others have said the other books were pretty good.

 

[PapaGolfWhiskey]

My library had three of the four.

Colour plates by the guy who does those cool colour plates (I think they're actually old Sci Novel covers a lot of them)

with a generally coherent story (TTA) written around them. In the days when Traveller was maybe 5 or 6 LBB's... it made cool traveller source material.

 

[Liam Devlin]

Good choices Plop101! Hav ye heard back from Larry and Garet? Doing some TNE-T-20 conversion this weekend meself.

as ever was,

 

[plop101]

Have not heard back from those two folks, but I just sent up a big flare in the recruiting section, so maybe we get some info back from them.

I'm going to do the Tree Kraken hunting thing this weekend, but I'll be back on Monday.

 

[Liam Devlin]

Bag some Tree Kraken fer me--but be careful out there of the other Hunters!

 

[Garet]

Has anyone mentioned piper's "cosmic computer" book. where people on a planet are trying to find a (rumor) lost super computer from a war. So it can tell them how to rebuild their world and get markets back after a post war bust. Very good book. It has the traveller flavor as does all his books.
Andre Norton books: dark piper, star rangers, catseye, all books about end of empire or life after a big war.

 

[PapaGolfWhiskey]

Cosmic Computer/Junkyard Planet has been mentioned several times by me. heh!

Andre Norton especially her late 70's early Eighties stuff and the stuff that was still in print then... greatly influenced my traveller in many subtle ways.

 

[Liam Devlin]

Andre Norton was another of those 'resources fiction writers IIRC seeing at the back of a Trav book (under the heading : "for more ideas...read the below..."). Glad to see she hasnae been left out!
Stars fer you Mr Garet!

 

[simon_1969]

Love Ian Banks (my fave SF author writing now - also check out his mainstream fiction especially The Wasp Factory), but he is a very un-Traveller author. In fact the Culture (the main starfaring state in his books) was probably set up to be the opposite of the standard SF future Galactic Empire thing.

But his books great starship names.

 

[Liam Devlin]

Went to Hastings FLBS today, picked up the next in CJ Cherryh's 'Foreigner' series "Explorer"!!!
Get back with you all here on how good it is( definitely a plus number!). Looked fer Ian Banks stuff...they were out... We'll see next payday..!

 

[Liam Devlin]

Finished "Explorer" three nights ago.. wow. First contact stuff, paranoia/ ship crew vs passenger vs stationers plots..and an Alien menace(/) that out techs the main heroes' ship...

Good stuff in this series to mine guys, ladies! CJ has done it again! 5 stars bang-up job!

heretically yours,

 

[Cleon the Mad]

I haven't scanned this whole thread, but if they haven't been suggested yet, may I suggest Niven & Pournelle's "The Mote in God's Eye" and "The Gripping Hand"? Wonderful example for the Imperial Navy, including a captain that's also a noble in his empire, the ships themselves, without too many changes could easly be Traveller ships, the Langston field is fairly similar to a black globe for instance. The aliens in the series, the Moties also make good archtypes for Droynes to a limited degree, with the manipulators possibly working as a way to play a Hiver.

Me