Titan: AE is worth a watch if you don't mind animation- it's highly under rated. Another series not mentioned yet ( I think ) is Millennium, with Lance Henrikson.
Almost forgot Firefly / Serenity and The Guyver: Bio Booster/Boosted Armour. The Guyver has a few different releases: an OVA (from 1986, I haven't seen a dvd release of this), Bio Booster Armour (Anime series from 1989 - 2 Discs) Bio Boosted Armour (Anime series from 2000 - 12 7 Discs) Guyver (aka Mutronics) Guyver: Dark Hero the 1989 anime series is harder to track down (I don't think it got a R2 DVD release, although there is an R1 release) I managed to get the first series from Playusa.com before it got integrated with the UK Play site. I left it too long to get the 2nd series though The first film, is more of a comedy and isn't as good (Mark "Luke Skywalker" Hamil is in it, but he's not the Guyver, despite the cover image implying it), the 2nd film "Dark Hero" takes itself a bit more seriously and is a lot better for it)
A few on the books front that are worth a look: Kevin J Anderson - The Saga of the Seven Suns (series) Walter Jon Williams - Dread Empire's Fall (The Praxis, The Sundering and Conventions of War), Hardwired Orson Scott Card - The Ender saga (Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, Children of the Mind) William Gibson - everything he's written, not just Neuromancer. The Difference Engine (with Bruce Sterling) is a very interesting read. Richard Morgan - Altered Carbon, Broken Angels, Woken Furies. Dan Abnett - Gaunt's Ghosts series (11 books so far IIRC) Peter F Hamilton - all of them. Best to start with Mindstar Rising and move forwards though and A Second Chance at Eden is a must read before the Night's Dawn trilogy, it makes much more sense then. Larry Niven - pretty much everything again but Ringworld is a classic, as IanW pointed out. Anime: Appleseed and Appleseed: Ex Machina Burst Angel Dead Space - Downfall and Dead Space - Aftermath Last Exile Sky Blue Vexille If you enjoy Ghost in the Shell I'd strongly recommend switching to Stand Alone Complex after Innocence as the Laughing Man is series one and Solid State Society is series two. Movies: Cargo (German with subs) Dante 01 (French with subs) Doomsday Dune (both the David Lynch film and the mini series are pretty good - not as good as the books but still worth a watch) Equilibrium Immortal Pandorum A couple of real B movie classics are Critters and Tank Girl, both incredibly silly and cheesy.
It was mentioned earlier. The TV cast is (mostly) the same people from the radio version. As long as you stay away from the recent US version (and Godzilla vs the Smog Monster).
TV: Anyone remember Star Cops Anime: Aeonflux Yukikaze SoltyRei Movies: Natural City looking forward to Promethius Lifeforce - for anyone who remembers Mathilda May Babylon 5 movies 1-5, The lost Tales and Legend of the rangers? @blademrk: Guyver - Bio Booster Armour I was only able to get it as an import, could not find as R2 like you said. @suicideneil: Yay Millenium, loved it got the box sets, time for a marathon
They only really work well if you watch them in the right order with the series. Fortunately I bought the zen boxed set I have them on my rental list, the last time I saw any of them they were on VHS. Someone has produced them on DVD as otherwise I wouldn't be able to rent them that way but finding out who is definitely something that's defeated me so far. EDIT: Oh dear, that's a rather unfortunate number of posts!
and then some. Def +1 though. All + 1 here, but I will include Serial Experiments: Lain as my personnal add-in there, though only if you enjoy your mind being twisted like a pretzel! PS: not an understatement
How can you people forget about Event Horizon? Sam Neill is so delightfully creepy in that one. Must watch! Also; Defying Gravity. Sadly only 13 episodes got made before it got canned, but they're still brilliant. I for one thought the show had great potential, and I was sad to see it go. Thanks for that by the way. Watched it yesterday and were truly impressed by what they had achieved with such a limited budget. I will be contributing to the project, and I hope more episodes get made soon.
Good, now go buy Tad Williams Otherland books. The only part I really enjoyed about Caprica, was the whole Holo-Band story. They clearly took allot of it from the Otherland books. Especially the rather hurried ending of Caprica...
I to am missing BSG, finished watching the series not long ago for the second time. I hope Blood and Chrome gets released soon. Good book is the The Forever War by Joe Haldeman, there are a few books in this series. Also there are a lot of films getting mention which are based on Philip K Dick's books so you might like to have a look at those. As for Alien films your right AVP never happened!!! But aren't you slightly interested by Prometheus?
The last Appleseed is the best of all, but a retrospective will help you understand the bond between the 2 main characters. Last Exile is a masterpiece, one of my favorites....too bad they scrapped the sequel/Parallel story. Sly Blue is a nice movie to watch, not the greatest story but still enjoyable. some suggestions of mine: Akira Armitage III & Armitage III Dual Matrix Ergo Proxy Full Metal Panic! Animatrix (Worth to be seen) Ghist is the Shell: Stand alone complex and S.A.C 2nd GiG (I never found out what was the meaning of the GiG. Since its a cyberpunk universe, I suppose it mean Gigabyte).
I think the (R1) DVD's were released by Manga (looking at the cover of the box), while the newer Guyver series was released by ADV Films. The newer series is 7 discs not 12, I'll update my earlier post.
I found it just the opposite, finished the first two books in a week, then had to wait a couple of months before getting book three, but when I did it lasted a day and a half. One of the most engaging writers in quite a while. And I'd like to disagree with Grimloon, about reading "A second chance at Eden" before the "Nights dawn" trilogy. Whilst it does perform the role of a future history to Hamiltons epic cataloguing each of the major historical events and technologies leading up to the climax that is over 1K words of pure win. I find that it lessens the impact, it removes the technology shock -not that there's much to shock the hardcore SF reader/viewer. And (to me) it shines a light where sometimes it isn't welcome, I much preferred speculating on the various false history's of Marcus Cavlert to knowing the truth.
Yikes! I'd completely forgotten Armitage III, definitely worth a watch though. Ergo Proxy left me more than a little bit puzzled as to the whole point of it and Full Metal Panic was a touch too chibi for my taste. Animatrix was well worth watching as well. I completely forgot to mention the original MTV series of Aeon Flux, far better than the movie which is only loosely related. The ones I've seen were definitely a Manga release, I've not seen any of the others yet. Hmm, good point. I'm used to recommending that order for the less hardcore SF reader as it drops less on them in one go. If you're used to jumping straight in to a series like C J Cherryh's Foreigner, Invader and Inheritor (quite in depth with political and cultural observations as a major part of it) then it's definitely worth going down asura's route. Misspent Youth is another great one of his, I managed to pick up a signed copy in a second hand bookshop Fallen Dragon is one I'm still divided on in that none of the characters is totally likeable, they all have aspects that are truly detestable as well. Another author worth a look is John Meaney. Bone Song and Dark Blood are a combination of Gothic horror, Noir and Sci-Fi while the Nulapeiron sequence is classic Sci-Fi. I haven't read Absorption yet (Ragnarok trilogy) but I've got it lined up.
Oh, if we're going for so gad it's good, then Nemesis goes beyond into the realm of legendary epic fail... If you like your films with a questionable premise, an absent/corpse of a plot, bad special effects, worse acting, and no real conclusion. Then that's the film for you.