What are some of your favorite science-fiction novels?

[Ryan_m_b]

Ryan: I did notice that KSR did seem to go off on a tangent sometimes and I must say that it changed the timing and pace. But I liked the general concept of the trilogy, so that kept me reading more than anything else.

Same here though less so the space colonisation aspect (weird as that statement sounds) and more so the exploration of new socioeconomic models.

The next book I am going to try is Revelation Space by Alistair Reynolds. I haven't read reviews as yet though.

Alistair Reynolds is an excellent writer of space opera, he's definitely one of my favourite authors (in fact his standalone novel Pushing Ice remains today my favourite book). I read his Revelation Space trilogy nearly ten years ago I think and it's aged really well. If you like a thorough examination of transhumanism and like your SF harder than most then Reynolds is definitely the man.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Snowcrash by Neal Stephenson.

I've always intended to read Snowcrash but never got round to it. I read diamond age that is set in the same universe, that was a book with a lot of promise whose plot took seven steps into bizzaro world about halfway through.

 

[KiwiKid]

I've always wanted to really start reading some good Sci-Fi novels, but never really knew where to begin. Any suggestions - good authors or books?

 

[BobG]

Favorite novels:

The End of Eternity, Isaac Asimov (plus his Foundation series)

Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card (plus his short story, Fat Farm)

Best collection of short stories (since those were also mentioned):

Eco-Fiction., edited by John Stadler

Best individual short stories:

The Billiard Ball, Isaac Asimov

A Slight Case of Sunstroke, Arthur Clarke

(Although "The Sound of Thunder" and "The Birds" in Eco-Fiction were good enough to make movies of the same name.)

 

[Evo]

The Sound of thunder (the original story) was excellent. Don't let the movie discourage you, the story is nothing like it.

 

[Evo]

Evo: I have never read anything by Ray Bradbury. So you just listed the second-next book on my list :D

He was an excellent writer. As with any of the older classics, you have to remember when they were written our knowledge of some things were different, but the quality of the stories is what's important.

 

[genericusrnme]

Or the plans for the Superconducting Supercollider.

tehe

 

[Jobrag]

Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy
Dune Trilogy

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

One I don't hear often is "This Perfect Day". It's a Orwellian style and super interesting. You also really care abut the characters.

 

[OmCheeto]

Snowcrash was recommended to me by both Evo & Char.Limit.
It was excellent.
I couldn't wait to get home every day from work to read it.

My other favorites were read over 30 years ago, so I only know that I liked them enough to devote their titles to memory:
Dune, Childhood's End, The Gods Themselves, and Foundation Trilogy.

 

[Aero51]

Blood Music- Greg Bare

 

[OmCheeto]

One I don't hear often is "This Perfect Day". It's a Orwellian style and super interesting. You also really care abut the characters.

Ah! I had to stop reading the wiki entry, as I decided I wanted to read the book.

Do they still write dystopian novels?
Gads those were great: Animal Farm, Atlas Shrugged, Lord of the Flies, etc...
I can't remember now if I read Fahrenheit 451, as the movie was incredible.

hmmm... if that isn't irony, then I don't know what is...

 

[DennisN]

Mmm...nostalgia . Reading this thread made me remember quite a few books I've enjoyed. But they are quite different from each other, so I've categorized them.

Great stories:
20,000 leagues under the sea (Jules Verne; the first novel I ever read)
The Mysterious Island (Jules Verne; not exactly SF, but connected to the above)
Foundation Trilogy (Isaac Asimov)
The Currents of Space (Isaac Asimov)
I, Robot (Isaac Asimov)
The Caves of Steel (Isaac Asimov)

Great storytelling:
Dune (Frank Herbert (1965); wow)
Frankenstein (Mary Shelley; excellent story)

Entertaining:
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (Robert A. Heinlein)
The Andromeda Strain (Michael Crichton)
Sphere (Michael Crichton; good book, not so good movie)

Interesting/weird:
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (Robert Louis Stevenson; short but excellent)
Solaris (Stanislaw Lem; original and weird)
Rendezvous with Rama (Arthur C. Clarke; a masterpiece IMO)
The Werewolf Principle (Clifford D. Simak; original and weird)

Dystopias:
Brave New World (Aldous Huxley; classic)
Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury; classic)
1984 (George Orwell; classic)

Also, Philip K. Dick has written many good short stories. I like all of the books I listed, but the must-reads would IMO be Foundation Trilogy, The Currents of Space, Frankenstein, Jekyll and Hyde and Brave New World.

 

[cobalt124]

...nostalgia...

Foundation Trilogy (Isaac Asimov)
I, Robot (Isaac Asimov)
Solaris (Stanislaw Lem; original and weird)
Brave New World (Aldous Huxley; classic)
Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury; classic)
1984 (George Orwell; classic)
The Foundation Trilogy

Plus:

On my "to read" list:

The Andromeda Strain (Michael Crichton)
Rendezvous with Rama (Arthur C. Clarke)
Frank Herbert and Bill Ransom: Destination: Void, The Jesus Incident, The Lazarus Effect and The Ascension Factor.
Olaf Stapledon: Star Maker

Recommend:
any John Wyndham
any H.G. Wells
Asimov: The Rest of the Robots
Philip K Dick: The Man in the High Castle
Philip Jose Farmer: Riverworld Series, The Stone God Awakens
Olaf Stapledon: Sirius, Last and First Men
Joseph O'Neill: Land Under England
E. E. Smith: Lensman and Skylark series

 

[turbo]

If anybody reading this thread has not read Ender's Game, do it now. It is that good. Then follow up with Speaker for the Dead. OSC is a fantastic author. I have loved the works of Heinlen and Asimov (among others), but Card is in a league of his own, IMO.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Snowcrash was recommended to me by both Evo & Char.Limit.
It was excellent.

ah thanks for the reminder. I met someone on one of my travels who recommended it too and of course I forgot. I'm going straight to amazon now! :)

Has anyone read the classics "The Island of Doctor Moreau" and "The Lost World"? I've been thinking of picking them up.

 

[phyzguy]

No Larry Niven fans in this crowd?? I'd highly recommend "Ringworld", "Protector", and "The Integral Trees". All are highly imaginative and represent what I think of as "hard" science fiction, as opposed to fantasy. Another novel I'd recommend is "Tau Zero" by Poul Anderson.

 

[cobalt124]

...Has anyone read the classics "The Island of Doctor Moreau"...

Read this a long time ago, dark, atmospheric, suspenseful and scary, definitely recommend.

 

[Aziraphale]

Nice suggestions. I'm addicted to the Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones) series, but that's not Sci-Fi... I've been meaning to re-read Snow Crash for a long time, since I've forgotten pretty much all of it. Maybe I'll try to borrow it from you, Greg, if you're done by Xmas. As for my favorites, definitely the Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow series, although the more recent books are definitely not as good as the first in each series.

Ditto comments about KSR's Mars Trilogy. Very interesting story, but way too much filler.

Other suggestions: Margaret Atwood is great at good, old-fashioned social commentary through science fiction. I liked Oryx and Crake for its take on the possibilities of genetic engineering run amok. I'll come back and post more once I've had a chance to think...

 

[OmCheeto]

This thread needs to have the "edit" time limit eliminated, as I keep seeing books I've read that were simply incredible.

Rendezvous with Rama!

A really big cylinder, astronauts, and no aliens. How could anyone write an interesting story about that?

All I can remember is that I loved it.

 

[SHISHKABOB]

I just read The Forever War by Joe Haldeman and wow it was pretty great.

 

[Borek]

"Monday Begins on Saturday" by Strugatski brothers. Apparently hard to find - and expensive (used at Amazon starts at $78).

They wrote more great SF books - "Hard to be a God", "Roadside picnic".

 

[karan4496]

I read "Oryx and Crake" by Margaret Atwood this summer and really enjoyed it. It presents one of the most believable dystopian worlds I've read about. I'm intently waiting to read it's sequels.

 

[feathermoon]

I read the foundation trilogy recently.. strong story, soft sci-fi. Definitely worth the time.

Now I'm starting Hex by Allen Steele, its in the Coyote Universe of books, good so far but fairly soft sci-fi.

 

[tygerdawg]

(Gawd I feel old.)

I read SF in order to do a brain-dump from the day's stresses. Having said that...

ditto for Herbert's Dune, but only the original. Deep, textured, well done, thoughtful. Most of the sequels were weak and "me, too."

Rissa Kerguelen by Busby (aka The Long View). Read that many, many years ago and still think about the concepts of how societies deal with space travel at non-relativistic speeds.

Chindi by McDevitt, a really fun space adventure read with a cleverly written situation towards the end that only someone with physics / mechanics knowledge would understand.

Then again, most (not all) of McDevitt's books are just mindlessly fun reading.

Most of William Gibson's "cyberpunk" genre novels like Burning Chrome were very unique and refreshingly different at the time and fun. But again, not all of them.

I remember I enjoyed Timothy Zahn's Conquerer's Pride (and maybe the other two in that series) for military sci-fi action shoot'em ups with alien bad guys. Tried to read a few other of his novels and was generally disappointed.

 

[ImaLooser]

I just read The Forever War by Joe Haldeman and wow it was pretty great.

That was possibly the most imaginative SF I ever read.

My gripe with SF is that so much of it is thinly disguised metaphors of historical eras (the Roman Empire is the overwhelming favorite) combined with extrapolation of current trends. There is very little originality. I read history instead because real life shows more imagination, if you can guess what I mean.

The Forever War was Different. I like the Hitchhiker's Guide too, and Kurt Vonnegut.

When I was a kid I liked Asimov. He is very good with plot.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

My gripe with SF is that so much of it is thinly disguised metaphors of historical eras (the Roman Empire is the overwhelming favorite) combined with extrapolation of current trends. There is very little originality. I read history instead because real life shows more imagination, if you can guess what I mean.

With regards to history repeats it is common to see SF that is pretty much Napoleonic wars in spaaaace (complete with royalty, empires, navys and historical figures *cough* honorverse *cough*) or idealised American navy...in spaaaace.

IMO there's nothing necessarily wrong with translating a historical circumstance into your setting, indeed it can be a great way to explore the issues, but when it's done badly or inappropriately it can really feel cheap.

 

[Travis_King]

All of the Priscilla Hutchins books by McDevitt are great.

I'm also a huge fan of McDevitt's Alex Benedict series.

 

[SHISHKABOB]

That was possibly the most imaginative SF I ever read.

My gripe with SF is that so much of it is thinly disguised metaphors of historical eras (the Roman Empire is the overwhelming favorite) combined with extrapolation of current trends. There is very little originality. I read history instead because real life shows more imagination, if you can guess what I mean.

The Forever War was Different. I like the Hitchhiker's Guide too, and Kurt Vonnegut.

When I was a kid I liked Asimov. He is very good with plot.

I'm kind of confused with your post, because I found that The Forever War was very much based on the Vietnam War. I mean, I think that the author even states this explicitly.

 

[ImaLooser]

I'm kind of confused with your post, because I found that The Forever War was very much based on the Vietnam War. I mean, I think that the author even states this explicitly.

So the USA was a society based on incestuous clone sodomy? You learn something new every day.