[Zaku]

hey everyone, i am asking for a huge favor. my girlfriend's birthday is in a week. she is a hardcore science fiction buff, what could i get her as a gift. i'd really appreciate any suggestions, thanks http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/smile.gif

[Hobbit]

OK Zaku - help us out here - a recent hard core buff or long timer?

Oldies but goodies - Hyperion series, Dan Simmons, most Stephen Baxter (try the Manifold series Space, Time & Origin )
Vernor Vinge's Deepness in the Sky, Downbelow Station (CJ Cherryh), Gregory Benford is good (Timescape, Cosm).

Recently Paul McAuley comes recommended, Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space is good too (but I've heard Chasm City, his recent second novel is better)...

Tau Zero by Poul Anderson is about as hard SF as you're going to get.

Gateway by Frederik Pohl.

Red Green and Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson.

The Collected Stories of Arthur C Clarke.

Julie E Czerneda I've heard is good (just got a copy of 'In the Company of Others' - looks good.)

Iain M Banks.


Does this help?

Hobbit

[Cadfael]

Get her a cookery book, now that would be a surprise http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/biggrin.gif, you may not live very long afterwards though http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/smile.gif

Otherland by Tad Williams is a good one.

[Zaku]

haha, thats funny.

[Hobbit]

...would this be the 'voice of experience', Dennizm? http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

(I don't see anything wrong with a good book that I can read later, myself... http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/wink.gif )

Who says 'romance is dead?' http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/smile.gif

Hobbit

[karljah]

This may be a very off the wall suggestion, so take it or leave it, as you will. Assuming she is a SF reader could almost assume she has read some hard SF (as in writers who frame their books within the limits of Physics as it is known at this point). Give her real Physics in a delightful and informative way. I suggest anything by Richard Feynman. He'll describe things in a way that ANYONE can understand. It's not wormholes, or FTL travel, or Bose-Einstein Condensates (SP?), or Star Wars. It's why Physics was figured out the way it was, and why Einstein chose the speed of light as the cornerstone of relativity (and what came before, and how he changed it), and why Principal Skinner from The Simpsons says, "You get all the fun of sitting still, writing down numbers, and paying attention. Science has it all." Feynman makes me feel good about science, like Niven, Heinlein, Card, and Pohl make me feel about people: it's humans making the most of the cards they are dealt, with wit, mistakes, and beauty. Try "The Character of Physical Law" or "Feynan's Lectures on Physics"; but if you want to read how HUMAN scientists are, read, or buy, "Surely, You're Joking, Mr. Feynman" or "What Do You Care What People Think?". But this is just a suggestion...

[Hobbit]

OK Zaku - I've brought this topic back up to see what you got in the end - 'cos I'm nosy! http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/smile.gif

Hobbit

[Zaku]

hey hobbit, i ended up taking her to a b&b. thanks for input guys.

[Hobbit]

Aww. http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/smile.gif

Mind you, when I first read that, I read it as BBQ. Must get the glasses checked...

It could have been worse - when you get married, it becomes B&Q; (which for our global friends is a large UK DIY store, with power tools, sheds and things...)

*sigh*

Hobbit - (allegedly) the sage of SF!

[Sammie]

I, too, read it as 'BBQ'.

Errr, Hobbit, i don't think you've sufficiently elaborated on the horror that is B&Q.

First, there's the terrible advert with all the actors pretending to be 'just ordinary people' and ....FAILING to convince us that they are 'just Mrs Smith' when, with their non-existent skills, they probably really are 'just Mrs Smith' and will be for the rest of their lives.

Then, there's the music. If you can endure the music in B&Q for more than 5 minutes without wanting to shoot yourself, right there, in front of all the little children (most of whom are infact already crying, but even so) then you are a stronger person than me.

Then there's the staff, and the dirty exposed concrete floor, and the inability to find anything except the aforementioned power tools and sheds. Oh, and paint. Lots of paint. But not the colour you want. They "might have that in on monday". (They won't).

Then there's the way your cardboard box is falling apart even before you take it off the shelf. And the way there aren't any trolleys....or the trolley is completely the wrong shape for the latest obscurely shaped object of desire, and you have to push it around while holding onto everything with one hand to stop it falling on an old lady-who WILL be there as soon as you let go for a second....or the way the trolley won't fit down the aisle....or the way that, when you force it down the aisle, lots of heavy things fall on you.....or the way that the barcode is always on the BOTTOM of the heavy object in the bottom of the trolley, and the shop assistant-who must see this every day-can't figure out how to deal with this. Or the way the loudspeaker always makes you jump about 3 feet in the air. Or, infact, anything.

Unless you like to be stressed, depressed, dirty, and lost, or are there to buy power tools or a shed.

[This message has been edited by Sam82 (edited November 13, 2001).]