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[Puck]

Quickly browsed the thread, dont know if I missed it, but it seems nobody mentioned Neal Stephenson yet. While I think most stuff he wrote is great, I definetly enjoyed "Cryptonomicon" most.

Those are true "geek novels" with just the right amount of action thrown in. Books for boys. Books like a dwarven machine, with tons of gears and gizmos and steampowered, of course. Hard to describe, I just love it.

And while everybody knows douglas adams, I dont see the books about dirk gently mentioned that much. Too bad I dont know the english titles. Douglas Adams written private eye stories. Great stuff.

But if you're even remotely nerdy - check out neal stephenson.

[Torak]

Horus Rising.

I'm a 40k fanboy, but that doesn't change the fact it's a great book.

[Darkone]

Starting by pimping my avatar, the Bolo series are pretty damn fun sci-fi. You can read three 'books' from the universe for free easily; one being a novel and the other two the usual -  a collection of short stories. The rest have to be aquired.  Plot varies, and universe can be summarized as follows- Clusterfuck + Aliens + Giant-ass-intelligent-tanks. http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/12-HellHathNoFuryCD/HellHathNoFuryCD/ HTML, parent site also has lots of other books such as Honorverse, Mutineers Moon, etc. All technically legal and free, so no guilt trips The Apocalypse Troll was pretty neat also, but mostly as a time-travel battle done properly, as well as space fighters done properly

Infinity Beach by Jack McDevitt is possibly the only book to ever get an physical/emotional response out of me other then laughs and tears. Great story, which I would rather not spoil with too many details, but -

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Dr. Kimberly Brandywine is in charge of public relations for the Seabright Institute, which is engaged in a spectacular feat of stellar engineering in an attempt to signal hypothetical aliens. Her life begins to change when a phone call from an old teacher causes her to re-examine the circumstances of her sister's death. Emily had disappeared twenty years earlier, shortly after the early return of an exploratory voyage. As Kim starts to investigate, questions arise over what really happened. Was someone on the crew a murderer? Did they find evidence of alien life?

- quoted from sfsite.com.

Seconding Neuromancer and anything by Terry Pratchett.

Don't have the names at the moment, but the books in the same series as Rolling Thunder are great.

Some Isaac Asimov, of course! I, Robot was great, and he has quite a few other books.

Charles Sheffield has some great books aswell. I can vouch for The Web Between the Worlds and I found Starfire to be pretty good.

Larry Niven's stuff is great. Footfall was wonderful, and the two short-story collections Neutron Star and N-Space

Hope this be enough for ya until I remember some other authors.

[Retro42]

Scar Night by Alan Campbell

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Campbell sets his stunning debut fantasy in Deepgate, a town wreathed in chains that keep it hanging suspended over a bottomless abyss, peopled by worshippers of Lord Ulcis, the god of chains, and tormented by a mad angel named Carnival. The author, who was a video game designer, renders Deepgate beautifully. It's a complex city of creaking metal links, stone and shadow, inhabited by priests, assassins and the boy-angel Dill, who will lead a journey into the abyss in a desperate attempt to save the city. Campbell has Neil Gaiman's gift for lushly dark stories and compelling antiheroes, and effortlessly channels the Victorian atmospherics of writer and illustrator Mervyn Peake as well. This imaginative first novel will have plenty of readers anxiously awaiting his follow-up. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist
A vast network of ponderous chains suspends Deepgate over a dark chasm. The church of Ulcis dominates the skyline and the citizens' lives. When a Deepgate denizen dies, the body is cast, with appropriate rites, into the chasm. According to the church, Ulcis lies in the abyss. When he has enough of the sanctified dead to support him, he and they will rise and overthrow Ulcis' mother, Ayen, who bars men from the joys of Paradise. In the meantime, Deepgate battles intermittently with the nomadic heathens of the surrounding deserts, who worship Ayen. Deepgate is home to two angels, the 16-year-old male last descendent of one of Ulcis' companions, and the mad female Carnival, who, once a moon, hunts down and drains someone's blood and soul to remain alive. Almost torturously crafted in characterization, plot, and setting,Campbell's debutmay appeal most to those who like novels in the manner of Dickens, whose highly evocative, occasionally overripe, memorable style Campbell's recalls. Frieda Murray
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.


Lifted those off of Amazon.com.  They describe it better than I could.

[Jude]

If we can get away from nerdy science fiction for a minute and move on to nerdy science non-fiction, let me emphasize that until you have read Steven Pinker's "How the Mind Works" (or any major work detailing similar theories, but his is probably the easiest to understand for people who don't have PhD's in the field and also entertaining), you will not have anything resembling a useful grasp of how the human mind functions and why

[penguinofhonor]

http://www.fullyramblomatic.com/articulatejim.htm

This. I finished it a day ago and it's got to be one of the best books I've ever read. And it's a free book.

[Tack]

what about Manfredis?

Spartan is really good
i've also read the tower, but it's not as good

[wehtamjd92]

I recomend Orphans of Chaos series the first book is slow but fills in enough back story that they barey bother with it again so from then on its a neverending stream of action, oneliner belly busters, and loads of well placed and well executed sexual inuendo. It's just amazing.

[Salmeuk]

"Pixel Juice" by Jeff Noon is quite refined.

If your into cyberpunk / Futuristic dub, that is.

50 short stories about a series of amazingly imaginative futuristic topics.

Um, let us see if I can write a hook. . .

Imagine if all the mirrors in the world were actually a great, silvery, fourth-dimensional beast. Now, Imagine if that beast got twisted up inside itself, so that instead of the mirror showing your face, it would show a random person across the world instead.

Noon goes on to describe the social effects of that.

Imagine if, in an ancient text, there was a diagram and series of words describing how to commit suicide naturally and painlessly. It is a 15-minute process involving clapping, stomping and chanting, but at the 15th minute, you drop dead with a smile on your face.

Most of his stories are like that of above, so if you enjoy imaginating others imagination, then this book is quite amazing.