Gearing up for holiday, 17 relaxing days in the tropics. Looking for reading (and music) suggestions for the long airplane ride and lazy days on the beach. I have some nonfiction in the bag already, so I guess I'm mostly looking for sci-fi. It needn't be anything contemporary, as I'm sure there are still some great classics I've missed.
 
And yes, before you recommend it, Blithering Genius is already loaded into the Kindle, where it has been sitting dormant for months awaiting just this trip.

FSF?

Oh, wait, your Kindle can't hold that much.
 

The Sonar manual.
 
That is the sort of stuff I like to read!

I'm just now getting around to Neal Stephenson's Seveneves. Enjoying it so far.

 
just finished a couple of sci fis.....
 
THE MOTE IN GOD'S EYE 
larry niven/jerry pournelle
 
CHILDHOOD'S END
arthur c clarke
 
THE GODS of MARS
edgar rice burroughs
 
 
 
other stuff:
A Briefer History of Time
Stephen Hawking
 
Abbey Road to Ziggy Stardust
 Ken Scott
  
A WIZARD A TRUE STAR TODD RUNDGREN in the studio
Paul Myers

Not science fiction but if you like historical fiction try Bernard Cornwell's "Last Kingdom" series. Set around the time of the birth of England he weaves a well researched and detailed fiction around the sketchy historical facts of the period.
 
I have found them a compelling read.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel is not only the best SF novel I've read in many, many years, it's the best novel of any genre.  The author looks to be a fairly young woman, which is astonishing since she "gets" old men (old like you and me, Dave) to an uncanny degree.
 
For classics, see if you can find the Planet of Adventure quartet by Jack Vance.  Or for that matter, the five Demon Princes books or the Durdane trilogy.  I read Vance greedily back in high school.  The last couple of years I've been going back and rereading my ancient paperbacks (glad I hung on to them) with enormous pleasure.
 
For fantasy, you will not top Patrick Rothfuss's The Name of the Wind and Wise Man's Fear.  The third and final book of that trilogy has yet to be published, however.

Just because it's on my mind and apparently a movie is about to me made out of it...
 
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
 
I've never read it and am not quite sure what it's about but I used to work at Ms. Atwood's house as a grunt and she's a very interesting character and an acclaimed writer and I want to read it before I see the film.
 
What I HAVE read by her (because she gave me and some of the other grunts a signed copy for X-Mas shortly after it was published) is "Oryx and Crake" which actually kind of sci-fi/dystopic future type stuff with a really twisted love story AND some seriously oddball societal commentary bordering on the satirical.
 
For some reason I think you'd like it... but maybe not the pure sci-fi yer looking for.
 
Yanno... I should have probably just said Oryx and Crake... but I still want to read Handmaid's Tale.
 
/hasn't had the luxury of "reading" fiction for ages
//needs a Kindle or to figure out how to read e-books on my lappy
///they come in threes... always in threes

'Lennon' by Tim Riley
'The Genius of Michael Jackson' by Steve Knopper
 
Both will give you a very different perspective of both those people.