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K W Jeter
Bladerunner: The Edge of Human (1995)
Bladerunner: Replicant Night (1996)
Bladerunner: Eye and Talon (2000)
Bladerunner: Beyond Orion (2000)

They combine elements from the book with elements from the movie.
I own the first three, haven't read the third yet. I understand that it's not about Deckard. I didn't know about the fourth one until just now.

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/j/k-w-jeter/

Why has no one has mentioned Fred Hoyle ? I read his Professor Gamma books (The Frozen Planet of Azuron and The Giants of Universal Park) when I was 10 and I loved them! http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/h/fred-hoyle. His biography is here : http://www.hoyle.org.uk/FH/Home.html
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The sleep of moderators produces monsters.

My second nomination would be the fairie tale collections by Terry Windling and Ellen Datlow. Starting with 'Snow White, Blood Red' and continuing through 'Black Heart, Ivory Bones', those two brought the grim back to fairie tales (and the delight too) that we miss in some of the Disney-ized versions.

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/ is a great resource for looking up bibliographies and writing order of many of the more well known fantasy and sci-fi authors.

That, or hit New York.

The first thing I thought upon reading the headline, War of Omission. http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/o/kevin-odonnell-jr/war-of-omission.htm

for audio material you could surgically remove their eardrums and cilia or any other procedure that would make them permanently deaf. For sharing visual media you could also remove their eyes with a fork and make them eat them. You wouldn't have to imprison them. Once they are blind and deaf they are unlikely to be repeat offenders. Although if you then catch them singing a copyrighted song you may be forced to remove their vocal cords and cut out their tongues.

Here is a short story by Orson Scott Card that has a very similar punishment system - interesting reading. I first found it in Maps in a Mirror, but this book has it as its title piece.

Let's be clear: I'm a Space Nerd, and proud of it. I grew up on Astounding/Analog - still have a loft full of back issues from the '30s. My son and I read space books every other night - I can't get Footprints on the Moon without weeping like a baby, just as I do every time I watch Kennedy's Rice speech. Just got me again.

But, NASA, NASA, what were you thinking here? I 'played' this mess for all of 10 minutes, then it was "delete local content" time. It's neither fun, nor educational, it's just a tedious frustrating mess. The only thing it inspired me to do was to bust out my copy of Space Colony and play through it again with Son #1.

Hopefully next time NASA will make up their minds whether they're making a game or a simulation, and stick to it.

...beer

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0564476/
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/d/gerry-davis/mutant-59.htm

CC.

The ship in Poul Andersen's The Makeshift Rocket uses beer for propellant.

You can't top that. You're always on the right heading, see? Heading froth into the stars!

Solar sails, indeed. [sniff!]

You really need to read "Rammer" by Larry Niven.

I think s/he is pointing at this: http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/p/kit-pedler/mutant-59.htm

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/w/donald-a-wollheim/edge-of-time.htm

Ok, i know its sci-fi, but its a great book, and you know what they say about sci-fi... todays sci-fi is tomorrows tech.

Depends on how you want to read them.

If you want to read them in the order they were published, they are listed here.

If you instead would like to read them in the chronological order of the storyline, go here for a good list.

Unfortunately, there's no ISBNs in the second link, so you'll have to google or use the first one to find the books for sale.

Meet Skizz.

Peter F Hamilton already predicted this in 2002 with Misspent Youth. He went further though to predict that not only would revenue-generating media die off, it would pull with it media quality. As such the only good stuff would be the classics :)

Well, Arthur C Clarke's novel, "The Imperial Earth" speculates that mini black holes would be the source of power for the rockets flying between Jupiter and Earth

And don't forget Charles Sheffield's McAndrew stories, collected as The McAndrew Chronicles. Great stuff if you're a fan of technically accurate science fiction.

Perhaps it's by coincidence, but I recently read Robert A. Heinlein's short story named "Let There Be Light" from the collection of short stories entitled "The Man Who Sold The Moon". It speaks of ways of maximizing energy capture by using appropriately shaped quartz crystals. Took only, like, what, 65 years (since that story was first published)?

I actually believed that the ideads not from 'I, Robot' were from The Humanoids, by Jack Williamson.

Spoilers below:

The plot in which humanoid robots are welcomed into society only to later enslave humanity, in order to protect it, comes right from the novel. Additionally, so does the idea of going to the supercomputer at the center of it all to shut it down.

What you say seems to have some merit as well. I would think that the movie takes ideas from many sources rather than just one, or even two.

talked about making silvered-ice mirrors on the Moon in his 1981 story The Patchwork Girl. Not quite liquid, but it would certainly start out that way, and probably at least grossly shaped in the same method. (Figuring and finish would probably be done the traditional way, though.)

And being solid, an ice mirror would be STEERABLE.

Maybe an offshoot of this research could be a medical-process for removing heavy metals from the human body ... I imagine though, that would involve creating a much more sophisticated virus that itself attracts the metals, rather than using the bacteria they've already created.

Ya I thought of that, but I was really thinking about mutation and wide-spread infection. Ever read the book, Mutant 59: The Plastic Eaters (written in 1971)? It's about rare bacteria found in nature that apparently consume plastic. Some genius discovers and cultivates it to get rid of plastic waste. Soon companies even make plastic soda bottles that can self-destruct into dust by peeling off the label. From the book:

The Record reports that Burd mixed landfill dirt with yeast and tap water, then added ground plastic and let it stew. The plastic indeed decomposed more quickly than it would in nature; after experimenting with different temperatures and configurations, Burd isolated the microbial munchers. One came from the bacterial family Pseudomonas, and the other from the family Sphingomonas.

Burd says this should be easy on an industrial scale: all that's needed is a fermenter, a growth medium and plastic, and the bacteria themselves provide most of the energy by producing heat as they eat. The only waste is water and a bit of carbon dioxide.

What could go wrong? Pretty much everything. Consider all the things made of plastic, like electrical insulation. Airplanes fall from the sky and it just gets worse from there. Pretty much everything has some plastic in it.

The last book of Ben Bova's Exile Trilogy is about children on a distant forgotten spaceship being raised entirely by broken machines/computers (all the adults have killed each other, but left these machines behind for this purpose), and therefore receive little or no formal education. They had no counting system, but kept track of amounts by naming everything. For example, they knew how many children made up their population simply because everyone had everyone else's names memorized. Later on a head count is achieved by reciting all these names.

When I was a kid I *loved" the Scott Saunders stories written by Patrick Moore. Back then, I didn't know who Patrick Moore was, but it was his books, along with Asimov's short stories which gave me my love and enthusiasm for space exploration and astrophysics.

The bibliography of his writings mentions some other books aimed at kids. I don't know how much they've aged, and I'm not making any reference to literary quality, all I know is when I was eight, I thought they were the best books ever. Except for the Hobbit.

The books that turned me on to sci-fi, as a pre-teen, were the "Dragonfall 5" series by Brian Earnshaw.

There are five books in the series (all titled "Dragonfall 5 and the..."). They tell the tale of a family who live onboard a small spaceship (named Dragonfall 5), which visits various planets where the family has adventures. One of the most memorable stories concerned a civil war in an Orwellian society of intelligent rabbits.

They're definitely aimed at children and are available (mostly second-hand, sadly) from Amazon.

David Eddings - See a list HERE. Great books, although the Dreamer series was a bit on the soft side. Regina's song is more of a suspense/horror story and The Redemption of Althalus is a pretty good read. Both of those are stand-alone books. The Belgariad and the Mallorean are both 5 books each. If they liked Harry Potter, they are going to love The Belgariad/Mallorean series. A young boy finds out he is a very powerful sorcerer. Battles Gods, etc. The character Silk and Belgarath's interactions are priceless.

Terry Goodkind - Start with Wizard's First Rule and then go from there. That one will take them a while as the books and the series are huge. Same kind of theme but more adult. Young man finds out he is a very special kind of wizard. The book has some VERY brutal and sexual imagery though so you might want to read it first.

Addams and Tolkien Great choices.

But since the topic is scifi"&"fantasy I suggest the Christopher Stacheff Books in the Warlock series. It's about a space "secret agent" who is sent to a world where magic appears to be a real phenomenon. Witches, shapeshifters, robots and rayguns. Its great stuff.

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/s/christopher-stasheff/

C.

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/d/gerry-davis/mutant-59.htm

Here's another link:
Mutant 59: The Plastic Eaters Something of an end-of-civilization story; I read it years ago.

I always use http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/ to see what's out and what's coming. I've discovered many books through recommendations on similar authors.

It's science fiction, I know, but...

It might be dated now-- I don't know--but when I was that age, it was Isaac Asimov's non-fiction Realm of Algebra that did the most to set my trajectory. I don't think I've seen anything that was accessible as this since then.

Egads. It looks like this out of print, and expensive on the used-books market. Grrr.

Of course the Infinite Improbability Drive is powered by tea.

But Poul Anderson had a real beer-powered spaceship.

I think I know where they got the idea from... The Toyminator

It's crappy writing but this notion plays a key role in Sawyer's Neanderthals trilogy.

Yes, and a book called Brontomek! from the mid 70s (by Michael Coney) had the idea as well. And there were sailing boats in Australia in the 80s that had slots thru the hull whose sole purpose was to induce a layer of bubbles over the hull. (sorry, no photo)

Reading this whole article, I'm surprised that NOBODY'S yet mentioned Sydney's Comet (1983)! c'MON people!

here's the cover: http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/h/joe-w-haldeman /forever-war.htm

is the Stardance trilogy: Spider collaborated with his wife Jeanne to write about taking the art of dancing into space (free-fall), with all the associated challenges.

The first title is here:
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/r/spider-robinso n/stardance.htm

There's a book like this from the late 70's, 100 Great Science Fiction Short Short Stories
  I remember an Asimov entry (story format in the book was Title:Story): 'Science Fiction For Telepaths: "Aw, you know what I mean."'

Someone invents a device to emit a high frequency sound that paralyzes people (the balance organs are located in the ears) and uses this for robbery. Rick becomes involved and manages eventually to create another device that produces a counter sound to neutralize the paralyzing device.

Of course this is fiction (and interference was not accounted for at all in the book as far as I remember), but never the less it was an interesting concept.

Yes. That was it. I was vacillating between him and Poul Anderson.

Wall Around a Star, the second book in the Saga of Cuckoo series.

Thank you.

Move Earth closer to Jupiter.

Whatever "books" you read as a child are figments of your imagination.

Pretty vivid imagination eh !
Or don't they count as "books" ?

A good bibliography: http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/l/stanislaw-lem/

I'd never heard of Greg Egan until now. As your taste includes the sensational Ken MacLeod, I'll definitely make a point of reading Egan's stuff.

MacLeod's early work, The Fall Revolution is simply the best Sci Fi I've ever read. Near future (at least in the beginning) dystopian sci-fi that extrapolates current social, technological and geo-political trends in an incisive manner. Want Unix shell commands in the fiction you read? Dreading the breakdown of the social fabric due to the inevitable result of rampant capitalism? Ready to take up arms to resist American hegemony? MacLeod is the author for you.

Nancy Kress's "Beggars" series is an excellent alternative view of where a post-scarcity world might lead that is hard to call either utopic or distopic. I found the point at which 5% of society worked (in professional roles) to support the other 95%, and *both* groups were sure that they were the upper class to be particularly insightful.

Why not just commission a few screenplays from Stephen Baxter? Great hard SF writer. Sure, he's a brit, but nobody's perfect. :P

At twice the radius, this would give a surface gravity of about 1.5 earth normal. (The ~2.0g value posted elsewhere is for the "more probable" mass.)

Is life possible at all under such gravity?

Sure - there would be a bit more cardiac wear and tear having to pump heavier blood around, but it should be survivable.

Any examples?

Well, there's Anne McCaffrey's "heavy-worlders". Oh, you wanted "real life" ... about the only thing would be the acceleration felt for short term things (rocket launches).

I'm not sure why people have been posting about external pressure. We'd have no good method of estimating the atmospheric conditions (other than as TFA points out, it would be rather warm for life as we know it).

errr.... Damon Knight. Damn, tracked that down right after the post submitted.

This guy had some interesting things to say.