Idea Books

As I've been chipping away at Rise of Endymion over the past week or so, I keep getting more and more impressed by the amount of ideas Dan Simmons throws at the reader, both in this volume and the Hyperion Cantos as a whole.  Today's blog topic will be Idea Books.

1. The Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons:  Not only does Dan Simmons throw nanotechnology, wormholes, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and time travel at the reader, he does so in a very readable fashion.  In Rise of Endymion, there's an organically grown Dyson Sphere!
2. Implied Spaces by Walter Jon Williams: While I'm not overly thrilled with the execution, WJW isn't stingy with the concepts in Implied Spaces.  We get body swapping, pocket dimensions, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, and wormholes.
3. Roger Zelazny:  Yes, I know the late Roger Zelazny isn't a novel but the man throws ideas around like an octopus in a snowball fight.  Aliens masquerading as gods, time travel, alternate dimensions, artificial intelligence, etc.
4. Ringworld:  I actually don't like this book very much but I love the Ringworld concept.  Picture a ring-shaped world encircling a sun and having millions of times the surface area of Earth?  Too bad nothing very exciting happened there...
5. The Old Man's War series by John Scalzi: In this humorous series, John Scalzi throws some pretty big ideas around.  We get body swapping, nanotechnology, FTL travel, space elevators, organic machines, and more clever ideas than you can shake a stick at.