Traveller-esque space opera books

[Starviking]

Hi Employee,

I think the book you're refering to is "Across a Billion Years" by Robert Silverberg. A very moving book - it's well worth a look at.

Starviking

 

[Bob Weaver]

Originally posted by Andy Fralix:
Also try Andre Norton's Free Trader stories. Small independent ship's aginst the megacorps. Plague Ship is one of them, but I can't remember the names of the others right now.

The Solar Queen series. Titles include Sargasso of Space, the aforementioned Plague Ship, Redline the Stars, Derelict for Trade, Mind for Trade, Star Hunter & Voodoo Planet. Great stuff, all of them.

Best Regards,
Bob Weaver

 

[archhealer]

Originally posted by Employee 2-4601:
Larry Niven's and Jerry Pournell's (sp?) The Mote In God's Eye - that book even had Black Globes! Very creative and quite Travelleresque.

Of course, their black globes allowed ships to fly into/through stars, but the idea is the same.

 

[Rover]

Originally posted by Archhealer:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Employee 2-4601:
Larry Niven's and Jerry Pournell's (sp?) The Mote In God's Eye - that book even had Black Globes! Very creative and quite Travelleresque.

Of course, their black globes allowed ships to fly into/through stars, but the idea is the same. </font>[/QUOTE]Not just the Black Globes, but an intersellar empire with a space navy and an aristocrosy that was actively involded in governance.

I suspect Mark Miller was influenced by this book. It is a personally favorite. I think this is a must read for any fan of Hard SF.

 

[Golan2072]

Originally posted by Starviking:
Hi Employee,

I think the book you're refering to is "Across a Billion Years" by Robert Silverberg. A very moving book - it's well worth a look at.

Starviking

Yes, this is the one - Silverberg's best book IMHO, and a damn good one.

 

[Plankowner]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
E.C. Tubb's Dumarest series of novels; The Family d'Alembert series by E.E.'Doc' Smith; The Stainless Steel Rat series and the Deathworld series, both by Harry Harrison; Brian Daly's Alacrity Fitzhugh and Hobart Floyt novels.

They've all influenced MTU in the past...

I had forgotten about the Alacrity Fitzhugh books! When I first read them, they SCREAMED Traveller!

I figured it could have occurred near the end of the Long Night...

 

[Uncle Bob]

These are some oldies from the 60s-70s that certainly shaped the thinking at GDW.

James H. Schmitz His Hub is almost as big as Third Imperium, with megacorps, criminsal consortiums and star-spanning institutes and Societies. Pirate gangs who think nothing of snuffing a few thousand people to cover their escape. I don't run psionics, but his Telzey Amberdon stories show how to do it right.

Alexei Panshin (At least his novels Star Well, Masque World, and The Thurb Revolution) His Anthony Villiers, Viscount Charteris is the epitome of the Imperial noble, witty, urbane, unfailingly polite. And the stories have a light-hearted tone, until you realize the casual acceptance of assasination, boot-leg organs of uncertain origins, and a murderous code duello. I think the LBB 76 Patrons stat'ed him. http://www.strangehorizons.com/2003/20030324/villiers.shtml

A. Bertram Chandler The John Grimes novels (tracing the career of that Naval officer, but they read as more Merchant than Navy) are usually remembered. Chandler spent a career at sea as a merchant marine officer and master mariner and his novels are the best source to understand Merchant characters. He was also Australian, which adds an interesting flavor.
http://www.bertramchandler.com/

Schmitz is currently being reprinted, good luck finding Panshin's Villiers novels or anything by Chandler. I haunted used book stores for my copies.

Gordon Dickinson, Especially his Dorsai novels (I particularly liked Tactics of Mistake). These are about a planet of Mercenary soldiers

Jerry Pournelle A little later. His Falkenbergs Mercenary Legion stories are about the bast out there. Larry Niven and he wrote Mote in God's Eye is one of the classic first-contact stories.

Nerwer stuff ... I rather like Robert Frezza (his McLendon's Syndrome novels are very Traveller-esque). Robert Lynn Asprin has done some Travelleresqus stuff. The Phules Compsny stories are fun, but his novel Tanbu puts a new spin on Space Piracy

 

[JAFARR]

Originally posted by Bob Weaver:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Andy Fralix:
Also try Andre Norton's Free Trader stories. Small independent ship's aginst the megacorps. Plague Ship is one of them, but I can't remember the names of the others right now.

The Solar Queen series. Titles include Sargasso of Space, the aforementioned Plague Ship, Redline the Stars, Derelict for Trade, Mind for Trade, Star Hunter & Voodoo Planet. Great stuff, all of them.

Best Regards,
Bob Weaver </font>[/QUOTE]Thanks for helping with the names. I seem to be having too many of those "senior moments" when I can't remember things any more. (Might also be that I have just read too many books.) I thought I had a newer one around the house also, but I can't seem to put my hands on it right now, or I would add it to the list.

 

[mbrinkhues]

Originally posted by Lord Vince:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Sir Dameon Toth:
Interesting. I just did a search on 'Moving Target' on my library web page, and the one that comes up is by Elizabeth Lowell - and it's a romance novel. Wierd coincidence with the author's names. Do you know if they printed it under a different name in the U.S.?

Yes, it was...or, I assume that's the case.

Here in the US, this particular series by Elizabeth Moon is being promoted as "Trading in Danger", Book #1, plus "Marque and Reprisal", Book #2. Book #3, "Engaging the Enemy" is also out, but only in Hardcover (I, myself, wait and buy the Mass Market Paperbacks).

The series is called "Vatta's War". But, again, for whatever marketing reasons, these names may be different outside the US. </font>[/QUOTE]Actually book 3 is out in Softcover since somewhere in June over here in germany. At least that's when I bought it and swallowed it. It get's interesting. Would make a nice Traveller campaign.

As for the Langston-Field used in Pournelles Future History, it works quite different from a black globe:

The field can open ports for sensors, gunfire and engines to work through rather than flicker.

The basic field absorbs energie going through the spectrum until it collapses if it can not radiate the energy. Otoh it can IIRC radiate energie out one side of the shield if the other is hit

The field can be created as a dome to protect cities

The enhanced field expands and increases it's area. Works nicely in a space battle since it can reflect more energy, works badly if you are flying through the remains of a supernova. (Not a real sun, even Langston-Fields won't survive that)

 

[aramis]

Very similar to the ones in Doc Smith's Lensman series.

 

[kafka47]

Yes, I really like Elizabeth Moon. One interesting group of short stories (like that format because I have such a short commute) was: Sex and violence in zero-G : the complete "near space" collection by Allen M. Steele. Whilst, it is Hard SF, there is a softer edge to the stories toward the end of the book. They best describe My Traveller Universe.