What are some of your favorite science-fiction novels?

[rshreyas]

the best thing i have ever read is 'the time machine' and 'the first men in the moon'. it's nice .it was written by h g wells , the first science fiction author.

 

[sappho.poiesis]

My above all favorite sci fi book is The Ophiuchi hotline from John Varley. the way it depics the future, the story evolves in a time when humans were "kicked out" of planet Earth and are stranded across the universe. Lilo the main character is a genetist who specializes in human genenetics which is ilegal. The story is very complex, and I loved every single word in it.

 

[Aaronvan]

"The Road" by Cormac McCarthy

 

[AnTiFreeze3]

I just recently read two of Isaac Asimov's short stories; The Last Question and The Last Answer. Despite obviously similar names, they're separate stories with separate characters, but both are very thought provoking, and definitely worth the read.

 

[UltrafastPED]

Lois McMaster Bujold "The Warrior's Apprentice"
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61906.The_Warrior_s_Apprentice

This one is part of an entire family of mostly great books; solid plots and great characters.

 

[Kepler20f]

Neuromancer by William Gibson. Great characters, world-building and plot, even though extrapolating from 80s tech is now badly outdated, i.e. no web or cellphones. Gibson has the best writing style of anyone I've ever read.
Player of Games by Iain M Banks (now sadly deceased), very powerful, very clever and I love the game it depicts.

 

[Odins Acolyte]

Radix is excellent. Also the series called the Urth of the New Sun. It begins with "The Shadow of the Torturer".
Oh! Cyrano De Bergerac was the first science fiction writer. He wrote "To the Moon and Back". My hero. Educated, creative and tragic and one of the very best swordsmen who ever did live.

 

[Nick20]

I like Star Wars!

More spesifically I really like the Bane triology. I have long been really fascinated by the sith and the ways of the dark side. This triology is from the old republic era and covers Darth Bane's journy from a cortosis miner to a dark lord of the sith. He learns that the brotherhood of darkness has left the old ways of the sith and seeks to reinstate the rule of two.

 

[johnathon_king]

enders game.

that is all i can say this book is like star-trek
taken to the next level

 

[Filip Larsen]

I am a bit surprised no one mentioned Peter F. Hamilton, so I'd like to mention his The Reality Dysfunction (first book in the The Night's Dawn Trilogy) and his earlier Mindstar Rising as very entertaining and readable, containing both hard and soft science-fiction.

 

[GTOM]

Last time : Rise of Leviathan, while i sensed certain contradictions even within the book, what they can detect and what they can't in space, well it is still a good story. :)

 

[jayzhur]

three-body

 

[Cosmo Novice]

Hello all,

Well read Sci Fi fan here so ill give some of my favourites:

Larry Niven is mentioned but only his Ringworld series - A mote in Gods Eye was a good read.

Peter F Hamilton has been mentioned above - big fan of the Void and Commenwealth series of books.

Arthur C Clarke Love the Rama novels - some great hard sci fi in there. Also some other great Arthur C Clarke novels and Collaborations - Last Theorem was enjoyable for me.

Kevin J Anderson not mentioned above but the Saga of Seven Suns I found enjoyable - similar to Peter F Hamilton in form (Soft Space Opera.)

Gary Gibson is not mentioned and I found the Shoal Sequence to be an enjoyable set of books. Again these are Soft Space Opera.

Michael Cobley is a good auther with the Seeds of Earth being an enjoyable book.

I enjoy most of the Big 5 novels but also am enjoying the emergance of the Space Opera more recently.

Not to hijack the thread but does anyone have a favourite alien species from within a novel? I think the Emmisarries from Stealing Light are funny - they are basically large Slugs who scream down Megaphones in their insane search for God - their technology puts them above other races who they treat brutally. Just great imagery!

Great thread btw.

 

[Nahk Ila Idhem]

Ender's Game

Ender's Game
Just read it, it's a great series about a young boy and saving the world from aliens. It's pretty emotional sometimes.

 

[Conservation]

To revive the slow thread since my reading list is very much indebted to this page; personally would like to add a vote for Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein.

 

[Kkangliu]

My favorite sci-fi is The Time Machine by H.G wells. although it have been published for a long time, for in this book, the author put forward that the time is the forth dimension. and I also like A Wrinkle in time.

 

[DHF]

The Time Machine is an ageless classic. you can't go wrong with picking that book for a good read. I think a hundred years from now people will still be enjoying it.

 

[Syed Ammar]

I think the best science fiction author is Jules Verne... Journey to the Center of the Earth, Around the World in Eighty Days( only a little science fiction) and of course 20,00 leagues under the sea.. The ideas he presents are just moderate...never too baffling to blow ur head off..

 

[rolerbe]

Plug for almost anything by Roger Zelazny. He rides a fine line between SF and fantasy, but always makes the fantasy seem plausible. Unlike many of the hard SF writers (which I love), his prose is a thing of beauty. Try: This Immortal to start, or any of his short story collections (where he truly excels) such as "The Last Defender of Camelot" or "Unicorn Variations.

 

[rolerbe]

For William Gibson, I thought Mona Lisa Overdrive was even better than Neuromancer.

Ender's Game by Card of course. Hit it out of the park with that one, but much of his other stuff is drek.

Want to recommend a book I thought was called "Camelot 3K", which I though was by Charles Sheffield, but I cannot find it. Driving me a little buggy. It's about a human trip to a comet where they find a race of intelligent crab-like aliens. Interesting things ensue. If I find it, will add it.

 

[Aaronvan]

Plug for almost anything by Roger Zelazny. He rides a fine line between SF and fantasy, but always makes the fantasy seem plausible. Unlike many of the hard SF writers (which I love), his prose is a thing of beauty. Try: This Immortal to start, or any of his short story collections (where he truly excels) such as "The Last Defender of Camelot" or "Unicorn Variations.

Let's not forget "Damnation Alley," one of my favorite Zelazny books.

 

[chasrob]

A couple of the best SF novels I've come across are by S.M. Stirling: Stone Dogs and Drakon. A race of super Nazis (with southern accents) arise out of South Africa, of all places. They eventually conquer the world. The detail Stirling employs in their life styles is extraordinary. They're kind of sadists, European style, originating from southern Africa.

Stirling's Under the Yoke is not SciFi, but goes into extreme detail about this alternate history, even more than the others.

Warning: they are very dark, and Stirling seems to deliberately try to push your outrage buttons. Sorta in-your-face.

 

[rolerbe]

Want to recommend a book I thought was called "Camelot 3K", which I though was by Charles Sheffield, but I cannot find it. Driving me a little buggy. It's about a human trip to a comet where they find a race of intelligent crab-like aliens. Interesting things ensue. If I find it, will add it.

Aha! Tracked it down. Only off by one order of magnitude. The book is "Camelot 30K" by Robert L. Forward. Interesting premise, well-done aliens, good read.

 

[samsam18200]

Star Wars Star Wars Star Wars Star Wars Star Wars Star Wars

 

[cpscdave]

this thread is awesome
from it in the past 4 months I have read:
Old Mans War Trilogy,
Fallen Dragon,
Now just started Schild's Ladder and loving it

 

[shukujo]

I have recently gotten into Japanese light novels - and there's one series that I want to recommend to anyone who ever had the notion that science is what magic actually became as mankind's knowledge of the universe has increased: Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei (The Irregular at Magic High School).

In it, magic isn't just some mysterious power that cannot be explained - the author goes to considerable effort to explain magic from a VERY scientific point of view. So much so that one my fellow staff members at the anime site I help administrate likes to joke that reading Mahouka is a little like reading a Linux manual.

There is an anime of it that is currently airing, this week the 23rd episode will air on Saturday, but most of the verbose scientific explanations of the magic from the novels have been seriously dumbed-down, or in some cases just altogether omitted, in the anime, so as to appeal to the widest audience possible.

There is only one way to get the novels in English, currently. Baka-Tsuki is a group of fans that do a fantastic job of providing English translations of material that hasn't been licensed, so therefore hasn't been translated - they remove any material that gets licensed as soon as it does. Personally, I am grateful for their efforts, since I can't read Japanese. There are a great many of these light novel series that are wonderfully creative and have brought me out of my reading slump - for a long time there, I couldn't find anything enjoyable to read.

Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei on Baka-Tsuki.org

 

[Luka Datas]

My all time favourites are.

Enemies of the system by brian aldiss, eye of the queen by phillip man, the winds of limbo by michael moorcock, the man who turned into himself by not sure who wrote it., the poison belt by arthur conan doyle, the food of the gods (and how it came to earth) by hg wells, battlefield Earth by l ron hubbard (very well written in spite of authors scientology connection) the strange case of dr jeckyl and mr hyde by (robert louis stevenson I think.) deathworld by harry harrison, starmaker by olav stapledon, understand by ted chiang, The grey lensman by ee doc smith.

Hope you haven't read some of them at least. I wish I could read them all for the first time and be swept away again. Maybe you can.

 

[DHF]

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.

Caring about the characters is the single most important thing to any book or movie. My wife and I just watched "Lucy" and we really wanted to like it, we really did but at the end of the film I found it extremely difficult to feel anything for the main character.

for books its even more important because you are painting a picture with words and you need to sell your character because you don't have an attractive A list actor to fill in the blanks for you.

 

[ShayanJ]

Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke
The Odyssey tetralogy (2001,2010,2061,3001) by Arthur C. Clarke
The Rama tetralogy(Rendezvous with Rama,Rama II,The Garden of Rama,Rama Revealed) by Arthur C. Clarke
The Invincible by Stanisław Lem
Nemesis by Isaac Asimov
Nightfall by Isaac Asimov
(I know I read some more by Asimov but I don't remember their names!)

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

I really enjoyed Spin
https://www.amazon.com/dp/076534825X/?tag=pfamazon01-20