What are some of your favorite science-fiction novels?

[AgentSmith]

Larry Niven's The Man-Kzin Wars is pretty good also. I think he is got up to about 13 or 14 books in that series.

Robert Buettner is good also. He lives very close to me but I have not been able to pin it down. Would love to drop in for a drink and chat.

 

[mpresic]

Nightfall by Isaac Asimov
The Andromeda Strain Michael Crichton, (although this was science fiction in 1969 when it was popular; it is interesting to read this today as the world has changed so much.)

 

[mpresic]

Nightfall by Isaac Asimov; The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton , interesting since the world has changed so much since this was written 1n 1969. What was SF in 1969 is routine and commonplace or obsolete today;

 

[heatengine516]

Andromeda Strain is one of my favorites too. Also:

The Martian Chronicles
Fahrenheit 451
1984 (does it count?)
The Time Machine
War of the Worlds

All S-tier. I chose to read mostly science fiction novels back in high school for book reports. The one good thing about having to write those is the amount of classic science fiction I was able to expose myself to.

 

[Stephanus]

The late Michael Crichton is not bad. But Dan Brown is my favorite (if his book can be considered SF).

 

[Stephanus]

Nightfall by Isaac Asimov; The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton , interesting since the world has changed so much since this was written 1n 1969. What was SF in 1969 is routine and commonplace or obsolete today;

Don't underestimate The Andromeda Strain . I just realized that the lab rats were cloned to make experiment less biased. What more precise than 500 labs uses 500 identical genetic rats to test their product, no biased effect.

 

[Stephanus]

Not War of the worlds and Time Machine!
They were 100 years before, before relativity I think. Like Jules Verne better.
I once read that War of the Worlds broadcasted through radio causes panick in New York (? and caused street accident, some killed?)
Three films based on War of the Worlds
- War of the Worlds - Tom Cruise, dir: Steven Spielberg. 2005
- Mars Attack - Jack Nicholson; Pierce Brosnan; Glenn Close; forgot who the director was
- Independence Day - Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pulman, my favorite Jude Hircsh, dir: Roland Emerich. 1996 if I'm not mistaken.
Time Machine is in 2003 played by Guy Richie.

 

[Priyadarshini]

Isaac Asimov's Foundation series is really good!

 

[Stephanus]

Isaac Asimov's Foundation series is really good!

Another Trivia:
There are three 'recent' movies based on Asimove three laws of robot:
1. Bicentennial man, 2000: Robin Williams, Sam Neil
2. A.I, director: Spielberg
3. I Robot, Will Smith, Bruce Greenwood.

 

[DaveC426913]

Spoiler: Speaking of Asimov...

 

[=SJ=]

My favorite books are:

1. Contact by Carl Sagan
2. 20,000 leagues under the sea by Jules Verne

These have in my opinion certain depht and I also aprreciate their's human dimension beside the technical side.
Along side with Carl Sagan and Jules Verne I enjoy A.C.Clarke who's sense of humour I like.

My favorite book-based movies and movies at all are:

1. A.I.: Aritifical Intelligence
   
2. Bicentennial man

I like the idea of artificial being who in an effort to become a human unconsciously exhibits the very human qualities and fuse with men.

 

[Stephanus]

My favorite books are:

1. Contact by Carl Sagan
2. 20,000 leagues under the sea by Jules Verne

These have in my opinion certain depht and I also aprreciate their's human dimension beside the technical side.
Along side with Carl Sagan and Jules Verne I enjoy A.C.Clarke who's sense of humour I like.

My favorite book-based movies and movies at all are:

1. A.I.: Aritifical Intelligence
   
2. Bicentennial man

I like the idea of artificial being who in an endevour to become human unconsciously exhibits the very human qualities and fuse with men.

Contact: See the movie, missed the book.
20,000 leagues: Read the book, never see the movie. Captain Nemo and Nautilus, right? But no mention of energy source by Jules Verne.
AI and BIcentennial Man prologs are Asimov 3 laws.

 

[=SJ=]

Contact: See the movie, missed the book.

The movie is exeptionally great and it very impressed me when I saw it in my childhood. Carl Sagan had worked on it as an advisor but as usuall the book is even better. It tells the story that can't fit into 2-hours movie ( for example Ellie's mother who have been left out the movie is alive in the book) and captures the interesting details and Sagan's ideas.

20,000 leagues: Read the book, never see the movie. Captain Nemo and Nautilus, right? But no mention of energy source by Jules Verne.

I've seen the two movie adaptations (and I'm looking forward to see also Karel Zeman's movie) and have read the book. It quite a long time but I think that Verne well-elaborated the technical details, which is what I really enjoy in his books.

AI and BIcentennial Man prologs are Asimov 3 laws.

Yes, actually the story for AI have been reworked by Stanly Kubrick and Steve Spielberg based on Asimov's Bicentennial man. They share the same idea.

 

[DaveC426913]

20,000 leagues: Read the book, never see the movie.

The original 1954 was great.

 

[sappho.poiesis]

The original 1954 was great.

I find his books too simple.

 

[Stephanus]

The movie is exeptionally great and it very impressed me when I saw it in my childhood. Carl Sagan had worked on it as an advisor but as usuall the book is even better. It tells the story that can't fit into 2-hours movie ( for example Ellie's mother who have been left out the movie is alive in the book) and captures the interesting details and Sagan's ideas.

Yeah, it is exceptionally great. I learned the director name years later. "Robert Zemeckis" - Forrest Gump, Cast Away, Mars Need Mom. Should have seen it in credit title. I read in Google that in the novel, Sagan pointed out something about the sequence of number in Pi in base 11 (or else, forget that) that contains the secret of the universe. Hmmh, Dan Brown's stuff.

 

[=SJ=]

The original 1954 was great.

I haven't seen this one yet, but I certainly will! I've saw the movie adaptation with Micheal Caine, which I like as an actor and think I've seensome another (my plans for today's evening has been just set :-) Also noteworthy is a Willy Fog's series. Although primary for kids, on severe episodes it carries with dignity Vernes's ideas and is on par with book's atmosthere more then the movie which I've seen.
Beside 20,000 which is undoubly the most famous Verne's novel and think that this novels From the Earth to the Moon and Around the Moon is also of great idea. It exhibits how many of Verene's visions (not all of them?) come to true almost in the very same way as he described.

Stephanus: Yes, this is typical for him. The movie shows to a watcher some of the most fundamental ideas of physics and he might not even notice that.

 

[DaveC426913]

I read in Google that in the novel, Sagan pointed out something about the sequence of number in Pi in base 11 (or else, forget that) that contains the secret of the universe. Hmmh, Dan Brown's stuff.

Yes, though it wasn't a 'secret of the universe', so much as it was unmistakably non-random, which is a message itself.

And Sagan did it long before Dan Brown.

 

[Stephanus]

Yes, though it wasn't a 'secret of the universe', so much as it was unmistakably non-random, which is a message itself.

And Sagan did it long before Dan Brown.

Of course. Dan Brown doesn't do math. I mean the "code" Dan Brown cracks the code in some arts object and Carl cracked it in Pi, as what I read in google not in the novel, so I didn't know precisely.

 

[enorbet]

Regarding Contact , having read it I do urge all who enjoy the man or the topic to read it. As good as the movie was it was a disappointment to me because I read the book first and it's depth surpasses the movie to a vast degree, which is to be expected since movies tend to "boil things down".

Spoiler

The mind boggling, thirsty bit about Pi is that it is an extension of the messages that Ellie discovered that had just enough pattern for their instruments (and a human observer) to detect as non-random immediately but as time passes first text is revealed, then pictures, then moving pictures. So it is hinted that by a similar process a pattern is revealed in Pi which obviously much be considerably more complex than the simpler messages received by SETI. .. and far older.

This is especially important because while the movies devotes a mere moment to the condition that seemed to exist at some nexus in her wormhole travel that appeared to her to be an artificial construct something like a train or plane terminal, a somewhat central manifold to many places, and the answer to her remark about it that states the Terminal was merely discovered and had been built by Ancients who could no longer be found. So one is led to draw the conclusion that perhaps it was this incredibly advanced civilization, coming possibly eons before those that made contact, that structured Pi as an encrypted message fantastically more complex and data full than even the Contact masters have imagined.

While I am hiding this beneath "spoiler" wraps, I assure you it it is barely a wisp of a hint compared to the imagination and words of Carl Sagan and nothing has been really spoiled at all.

Also while on the subject of Carl Sagan, I'd like to introduce those here to a writer in the same vein. Though nowhere near as well known, nor prolific, but still of a mind in imagination built on hard science, is Hank Searle who wrote a mind blowing little Science Fiction novel entitled SOUNDING https://www.amazon.com/Sounding-Hank-Searls/dp/1497638542

All I will say is that it is about whales, dolphins, and humans and the nature of intelligence and was a breathtaking page turner for me.

 

[DaveC426913]

Also while on the subject of Carl Sagan, I'd like to introduce those here to a writer in the same vein. Though nowhere near as well known, nor prolific, but still of a mind in imagination built on hard science, is Hank Searle who wrote a mind blowing little Science Fiction novel entitled SOUNDING https://www.amazon.com/dp/1497638542/?tag=pfamazon01-20

I'm convinced. Emboughtened. :)

 

[Stephanus]

Regarding Contact , having read it I do urge all who enjoy the man or the topic to read it. As good as the movie was it was a disappointment to me because I read the book first and it's depth surpasses the movie to a vast degree, which is to be expected since movies tend to "boil things down".

Yes, few movie can compare the quaility with the book. Only Mario Puzo's Godfather.
I once read Crichton's The Lost Word. Two teams in total do to Isla Solar (or Nuba?)
The first is: Ian Malcolm, Eddie Carr, Two Kids, and Susan Sarandon character
The second: Two or three antagonist.
In the movie:
The antagonist becomes a team (more than 10 people) full with heavy vehicles, heavy tools and modern weapon.

 

[DaveC426913]

Yes, few movie can compare the quaility with the book.

Depends which order they were done in. Ever read the book version of a movie that was as good as the movie?

 

[Stephanus]

No, absolutely not! After I watch the movie, I can't bring my self to read the book version or the novelization.
Funny thing about Da Vinci Code and Angel and Demons. The movie and the book sequence is upside down.
But after watching movie, I might search the novel. Contact is one of them. That I want to search, but there's no "Contact" in bookstore nearby me.

 

[DaveC426913]

After I watch the movie, I can't bring my self to read the book version or the novelization.

Yeah. The novelizations are dreadful. They're simply a mechanical reproduction of the movie, minus all the good stuff.

"Poot-ee-weet" said R2-D2, "Poot-ee-weet."

 

[Stephanus]

Yeah. The novelizations are dreadful. They're simply a mechanical reproduction of the movie, minus all the good stuff.

"Poot-ee-weet" said R2-D2, "Poot-ee-weet."

But not Star Trek! I bought a lot of Star Trek novels. They are not novelization. Perhaps you already knew that. The writers are somewhat a licensed writer. They can write Star Trek novel, they get fee from Paramount Studio (if I'm not mistaken) And they must follow a strict rule, they have knowledge about prime directive, etc.
They just can't write that Caradassians are nice people. Ships have to have inertial dampener installed with a very sophisticated computer to compensate pulse motion. Warp won't give you inertia I think, it warps space. And star trek ship has to be powered by anti matter.
Now, there's something just cross my mind. Where can they produce the anti matter at the first place? Anti matter aren't just lying around freely on the ground (or in space for that matter, sorry for that anti matter). There's no mention of if. Perhaps they tap the energy of a star, convert it to anti matter for "easy" containment. But it's rather off topic.
Novelization, no!. Spin off novel, yes. Star Trek.

 

[Bob Turtle]

I can't believe 'Rendezvous With Rama' by Arthur C. Clarke doesn't top everyone's list! There are many more entertaining books out there, but none that so clearly shows our place in the universe, which is surely the point of good SF. The sequels (with Gentry Lee) are not so good.

Also recommend:
Blood Music (Greg Bear)
Bill, The Galactic Hero (Harry Harrison)
Use of Weapons (Ian M. Banks)
The Reality Dysfunction (Peter F. Hamilton) but NOT the sequels
and (of course)
The Stainless Steel Rat series (Harry Harrison,again and again)

 

[DaveC426913]

But not Star Trek! I bought a lot of Star Trek novels. They are not novelization. Perhaps you already knew that.

True. They are novels in their own right, set in an existing universe.

 

[BWV]

For contemporary writers the top right now would be Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space series, followed by Peter Hamilton and just started Leviathan Wakes by James SA Corey which is entertaining so far

 

[Mr.Robot]

Neuromancer by William Gibson :)

 

[THEBOOKWORM]

the neptune project and the neptune challenge by polly holyoke
it is about some people who are part fish and there adventures int the seas and no they are not mermaids

 

[DaveC426913]

This one?

 

[hawkeye1029]

The Martian by Andy Weir :)

 

[Hatesmondays]

By far Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin. This book was very original and well thought out. Extremely well developed characters.

 

[Hatesmondays]

The Martian by Andy Weir :)

For me, the Matian is third.