Great Sci-Fi Novels

[SupaKoopa]

Originally posted by manny_c44
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
The Foundation Trilogy
The earlier robot books
Enders Game


Those are my favorites, the first one is the inspiration for Blade Runner.

GO ASIMOV!!

he's my favorite author...the foundation series just blew me away.

also dune was great,

as was ender's game, speaker for the dead, and the rest of the series that i've read so far

also, anyone read childhood's end by clarke? its about these uh...strange...looking aliens who come to help humans..kinda...i dont wanna spoil it, but check it out. it's got a great twist in it:cheers:

 

[JohnnyBeverage]

I think Sphere was a great book right up to the end, the ending was to put it kindly awful.

 

[Mjolnir]

Since we seem to be slipping into Fantasy books as well:

Chronicles of Thomas Covenant(the Illearth War etc)-Stephen Donaldson (again)
A song of ice and Fire Series(Game of Thrones etc) George R.R. Martin. (got to be the best fantasy i have read in years,can't wait for Feast of Crows)
J.R.R.Tolkien of course.....
Any of the David Gemmell books.
Gardens of the Moon(and all that follow)-Steven Erikson(just finished latest one..excellent)
Someone mentioned Terry Pratchett-I love the the "Guards Guard,Men at Arms" series...
Magician-Raymond E Feist(And all the books that followed on..)

just a few of my favourites..

Contemporary, Horror next??

 

[Skaven]

Black Sun Trilogy - C.S. Friedman
It starts out pretty sci-fi, then goes into fantasy. Anybody I get to read the first book can't put it down until they finish all three.

Somebody mentioned L.Ron Hubards books. I read one of his ten book series when I was really young, wish I hadn't in hind sight. Somethings you can't undo in your life, like reading his books. Pure swill.

 

[palindrome]

Timeline - Michael Chrichton

 

[trantjd]

Oh boy, this thread is awesome...where to start?

Sci-Fi:

John Varley - Steel Beach is a great book, somewhat soap opera-ish, but very entertaining about life on the moon after humans get kicked off of Earth. The Titan, Wizard, Demon trilogy is very cool.

Isaac Asimov - His novels are ok...you need to read the Foundation series (at least the original novels, written early on) and the Robot series. The Gods Themselves was a fun novel too. But where Asimov really gets great are in his short stories! Nightfall is an awesome short story. And The Last Question is just plain amazing! I recommend that every single person read that short story! It's quick, easy and you definitely won't regret it!

Orson Scott Card - Ender's Game and the Speaker for the Dead are great books! The series went downhill a bit from there, but you definitely don't want to miss those two! The parallel novels, Ender's Shadow and the Shadow of the Hegemon are pretty good too.

Arthur C Clarke - This man is wonderful. His books explore some very interesting ideas. Rendezvous with Rama is a great book, although it's sequels were co-written by Gentry Lee and seemed to lose a lot of the mystery that made the first Rama book so good. 2001 is a series that I enjoyed all the way through. It did get a little off track in the later books, but I was still very entertained.

Larry Niven - I don't care for his stories all that much, but the settings his stories take place in are nothing short of breathtaking!

Now, for a few individual books I liked by different authors:

I loved Contact by Carl Sagan. The theological ideas it showed were very interesting and the view it took towards the creation of the universe was very intriguing, especially at the end of the book.

Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut is a very interesting story, told by a being looking back 1 million years at the extinction of mankind.

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman is another great read. It's a story of war and relativity. Very fun!

The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester is a classic from the 50s about an man left to die in an attacked ship and...damn, I think I need to read this one again...but I remember that I loved it! :cheese:

That covers my Sci-Fi favorites pretty well...I'll probably prepare another, shorter list of my favorite fantasy books!

:cheers:

PS - Does anyone else notice how much easier this thread is to read than most of the others? Everyone uses good grammar, spelling and complete sentences! It's amazing what a difference it makes! Why do you suppose that could be?

EDIT: Sphere by Michael Crichton is a great book too...it really lets your mind wander!

 

[Nith Sahor]

The Pearl Saga by Eric Van Lustbader (The Ring of Five Dragons, The Veil of a Thousand Tears and The Cage of Nine Banestones) is an EXCELLENT set of books. It's actually a blend of sci-fi and fantasy, and is very, very interesting.

The Man in the High Castle by Phillip K. Dick is also very good, the ending was strange but refreshing in a way.

Although these are probably the only two sci-fi/fantasy series I've read apart from LOTR I enjoyed them a lot and found them to be pretty cool.

 

[DarkStar]

Thanks for contributing to my thread fellow readers!

Originally posted by Anthraxxx
I had to choose though, I would have to say my favorite sci-fi novel right now is 'Snow Crash' by Neal Stephenson. Wow.

I agree, Snow Crash is awesome.

Originally posted by Feath
Ahem

Starship Troopers - Robert A. Heinlein

Starship Troopers was good, but I still think Stranger in a Strange Land is Heinlein's best.

Also, I like how my thread seems to be attracting the well-read and intelligent forum residents while turning away the 10-year-olds and trolls!
Everything is going according to plan...

 

[Compman2000]

Originally posted by TheOriginalEvil
Wrong forum, but ohh well.... Fahrenheit 451

Agreed. Just read that book and thought it was awesome...the literary research paper I have to do on it isn't though =\

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is another good one, I apologize if it's already been mentioned.

 

[FortisVir]

Am I the only person who has read any of the "Year's Best SF" books?

I believe they are up to number 8 now, I'm not exactly sure. I have numbers 3-6 and they're all great, so if you haven't heard of the series go check it out.

Oh and one more thing - 42

 

[Maskirovka]

Originally posted by Mjolnir
Sh*t, where to start........


"Nights Dawn" trilogy-Peter Hamilton(just brilliant, also the Greg Mandel series)

defenitely the best sci-fi i've read in a long time.

i'd also reccommend Snow Crash (more cyberpunk than sci-fi but still a great read.)

i did a presenation about it for a religion class...so i did a lot of research about nam-shubs, informational viruses, and the whole speaking in tongues thing...very very interesing stuff

 

[Maskirovka]

Originally posted by DarkStar

Starship Troopers was good, but I still think Stranger in a Strange Land is Heinlein's best.

Also, I like how my thread seems to be attracting the well-read and intelligent forum residents while turning away the 10-year-olds and trolls!
Everything is going according to plan...

i heard heinlein wrote starship troopers in about a week while he was writing "stranger." i heard he wrote it because he had writers block or just had the idea and went with it...

anyone else heard that too?

and yes...the whole attracting the intelligent thing is nice for a change

 

[Varelse]

Originally posted by SupaKoopa
also, anyone read childhood's end by clarke? its about these uh...strange...looking aliens who come to help humans..kinda...i dont wanna spoil it, but check it out. it's got a great twist in it:cheers:

Finally got around to reading Childhood's End a few weeks ago. Awesome book! Lot's of great twists and some great future predictions from Clarke (as usual) considering the year it was written.

So many great reads have already been mentioned although the Ender series has a special place in my heart.

 

[SupaKoopa]

Originally posted by Compman2000
Agreed. Just read that book and thought it was awesome...the literary research paper I have to do on it isn't though =\

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is another good one, I apologize if it's already been mentioned.

meh i enjoyed 1984 and f451 more.

trantdj, lots of good suggestions...i've gotta pick some of those up, they sound interesting...especially contact and galapagos..i've only seen snippets of the contact movie, so i'd like to read the book (which is always better than the movie)

 

[Feath]

Originally posted by DarkStar
Thanks for contributing to my thread fellow readers!

Starship Troopers was good, but I still think Stranger in a Strange Land is Heinlein's best.

I meant that it was kinda related to Half-Life 2 (Ant-Lions)