What are some of your favorite science-fiction novels?

[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.

 

[SHISHKABOB]

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

the changes in the society on Earth were supposed to represent the changes in the USA during the Vietnam war. Not *specifically* but just the fact that Mandella came back to a home that was very different from how he left it. He was also unappreciated by people when he got back and almost alienated because of how he was basically in 20 years or so of culture shock the first time, then hundreds of years difference later.

It's not a direct representation, obviously, but rather a... well this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forever_War#Significance_and_critical_reception

 

[squire]

My favourites have changed down the years. i suppose some of my all time favs would be:

childhoods end - arthur c clarke
commonwealth saga (in particular judas unchained) - peter f hamilton
tau zero - poul anderson
eon - greg bear
hitchikers guide to the galaxy - douglas adams





My father was a watch maker. He abandoned it when Einstein discovered time is relative.

 

[Amok]

Blindsight is a sci-fi novel by Canadian writer Peter Watts. I haven't finished reading it yet (although I've read about 90% of it), and I alredy know it's one of the best novels I've read in a while. It's about a near future (21st century still) in which humans make contact with alien lifeforms. Extremely engrossing, with its main theme being conciousness.

Watts is a biologist by training, which makes his descriptions of the alien lifeforms (and of humans too) very interesting and very original. None of that cliché little men with big heads stuff. It's not an easy read though, and it's outlook on humanity is pretty depressing.

Highly recommended, felt like I had to share this. Anyone read it/heard of it?

 

[Ryan_m_b]

I've read Blindsight and found it unparalleled in its exploration of non normative mental states. Very few authors are bold enough to give their non-human characters anything more than a caricature of human/animal psychology let alone suggest that we're the freakish ones for having conscious experience.

 

[AnTiFreeze3]

I started the Culture series recently, with the first book being Consider Phlebas, by Iain Banks.

I'm only about 1/3 of the way done with the book, but thus far I've enjoyed the novel. It follows Bora Horza (forgot his crazy last name), who is a humanoid mercenary with the capability of changing his body (if necessary, to the very DNA) to match someone else, which is obviously a useful trait.

There is currently a galactic-scale war between the Culture (an advanced civilization, who presumably will be the point of focus for the future novels in the series) and the Idirans, who are an enormous (when compared to humans) species with three-legs.

It basically boils down to the fact that a Mind (an extremely advanced, sentient computer) crash landed on something called a Planet of the Dead, which is strictly off limits to both the Idirans and the Culture. Horza is one of the only people who is capable of gaining access to the planet, and consequently, the Mind, so both sides are fighting for his help.

I'm looking forward to the other novels.

 

[Borek]

Finished Snow Crash few days ago. Definitely good read, although some parts are are much better than the others.

I have a feeling Stephenson is a victim of his ow imagination - it gives him thousands of pictures/ideas and he has a problem of selecting only those that are important for the story.

 

[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.

Well, the correspondence was abstract enough that I didn't get it. Deep metaphorical things like that, good! If they had soldiers hopping around a jungle in 15-man antigrav ships on a satellite of Betelgeuse oppressing innocent natives who just want to grow greps, which is suspiciously like rice, then that would be bad.

 

[Arvin]

The Three Body trilogy by Xinci Liu.
A three-Body world suffered a lot because of the unstability of their stars. One day they received the massege from Earth and then formed the army to come to the earth. They used the advanced technology to preclude the development of foundational Science. How the human prevented the destory from three bodies... I am not sure whether there is English version now.

 

[Evo]

The Star Beast by Heinlein.

 

[Aaronvan]

Timescape by Gregory Benford.
Hull Zero Three by Greg Bear.