The Kipple Bookclub discussion

SciFi seems to lend itself to great big tomes. Here are some of the ones I'd recommend to anyone with some extra free time on their hands.

'Eon' by Greg Bear. It's part of a series but I've only read the first one. The Earth is still in a kind of Cold War when a mysterious object appears in orbit. Can't really say anymore without getting spoilery. Written in the 80s about the near future there is a strange alternate reality duality, especially when it comes to the tech, that I enjoy.

'Hyperion', and its concluding part 'The Fall of Hyperion', by Dan Simmons. Humans are spread across many worlds, facilitated by portals, and many cultures. On one of these, Hyperion, we find the Time Tombs and the cult of the Shrike. The first book is a series of tales from each of the adventurers, while the second book is where the adventure actually happens.

And finally, I'm currently reading 'Red Mars' (followed by Green and Blue Mars') by Kim Stanley Robinson, about the first human settlers to Mars. It's very realistic and I have high hopes for it.

I've read the Nights Dawn trilogy (The Reality Dysfunction, The Neutronium Alchemist and The Naked God) by Peter F. Hamilton. They're good & long (~1,200 pages each). Each one follows on from the next, less a trilogy, as one long story.

It's stock space opera. Nothing too challenging or complex. Set a few hundred years in the future, humans on hundreds of worlds, with basically the same society as now (with one or two exceptions). Plausable explaination of technological progress (mind/computer interfaces, space colonisation etc.) A long set up before stuff happens. A large detailed universe.