Many of the already mentionned books.
Hal Clement's Mission of Gravity, in the hard science genre.
As a kid I was absolutely stunned by The Tripods. I highly recommend these books (trilogy) for your kids (10-13 yo).
What are your favourite sci-fi books?
51–60 of 110 posts
Re: What are your favourite sci-fi books?
#52Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon.
Re: What are your favourite sci-fi books?
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've just finished the first three Culture novels. Consider Phlebas starts great, but loses a lot during the rest of the book. The Player of Games is okay, but by far not as good as people told me. Use of Weapons is excellent . I'll have to re-read it in a few months.
I thought the same thing the first time I read Consider Phlebas. Having now read it over 20 times, it's safe to say I changed my mind. My key to the novel: it's all about the nature of identity. The very first line is something of deep personal significance, but he's forgotten why. He steals identities. It ends with the mind taking his name. It's a keeper.
I couldn't agree more. "The Player of Games" also only improved for me with time and depth of context provided by the subsequent Culture novels.
Re: What are your favourite sci-fi books?
#54Everything from Asimov.
The Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson.
The Culture books from Iain Banks.
The Rama series from Clarke although it got tiresome after a while.
The Sparrow and Children of God from Mary Doria Russell.
Contact by Sagan which by the way is one of the very few sci-fi books that were successfully depicted in movies.
Brave new world from Huxley. Old one but still highly relevant.
The first ones from Gibson.
The Enter series by Orson Scott Card.
Bradbury's Farhenheit 451. This one is a classic.
Revelation Space from Alaistair Reynolds who writes the most hardcore sci-fi I've ever come across.
Re: What are your favourite sci-fi books?
#55I have strong opinions about this. My criteria for a book being science fiction and not fantasy is that is must be based on scientific thinking. The author must have done some work to determine whether whats happening in his book is at least plausible according to real science, and then work out the details of how it would actually function. So I regard most "science fiction" books and almost all "science fiction" fi…
When I read your comment I'm strongly reminded of myself ten years ago. I held almost exactly the same view on hard scifi, and was similarly obsessed with Arthur C Clarke. But I've since loosened my definition of scifi for a couple of reasons: a) I now think of scifi as any work intended to do more than tell a story or explore a world. Focussing on just hard scifi causes great works of social and sociology fiction li…
You might try Mordant's Need by Stephen Donaldson for a fantasy-skinned, scifi-like approach. The magic in the books is based around mirrors, and a large part of the book is spent researching how the mirrors actually are working, what are their limitations and possibilities.
Re: What are your favourite sci-fi books?
#56Really surprised to see no mention of H. G. Wells here, so I'm just going to add it :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Machine
You can get it at project Gutemberg, so no excuse not to read it.
Any book by French author Barjavel are also worth reading in my opinion, especially "La Nuit des Temps" / "The Ice People" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ice_People_%28Barjavel_nov... ) and "Ravage" / "Ashes, Ashes" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravage_%28novel%29 )
Re: What are your favourite sci-fi books?
#57Neal Stephenson, Anathem Iain M Banks, Use of Weapons Greg Egan, Diaspora and Permutation City Frank Herbert, Dune Kim Stanley Robinson, the Mars trilogy Vernon Vinge: A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky [Note to Hollywood: can we please have a Culture movie?]
> [Note to Hollywood: can we please have a Culture movie?] The only one I can think of where they might be able to stay more or less true to the source is Consider Phlebas, wherein the 'hero' fights for a monotheistic alien race against a bunch of godless communists. Plus I would dearly love to see the Clear Air Turbulence 's escape from the depths of that GSV rendered on the big screen.
Caveat regarding note to Hollywood: Please only allow Nolan to direct, otherwise we are not interested.
Re: What are your favourite sci-fi books?
#58Really surprised to see no mention of H. G. Wells here, so I'm just going to add it : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Machine You can get it at project Gutemberg, so no excuse not to read it. Any book by French author Barjavel are also worth reading in my opinion, especially "La Nuit des Temps" / "The Ice People" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ice_People_%28Barjavel_nov... ) and "Ravage" / "Ashes, Ashes"…
PS : DO NOT read the Wikipedia articles if you plan on reading the Barjavel books because they contain spoilers that may ruin the experience for you...
Re: What are your favourite sci-fi books?
#59Philip K. Dick (Ubik, Man in the high castle, Flow my tears the police man said) Frederik Pohl (Gateway, the Space Merchants) Ursula K. Le Guin (The Dispossessed, Left Hand of Darkness) Iain M. Banks (Culture novels) You will find many Sci-Fi treasures by just going through http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SF_Masterworks
Those are my favourite two Ursula Le Guin novels too :) Very well thought-through effects of technology on culture.
Re: What are your favourite sci-fi books?
#60Remarkable consensus regarding Iain M. Banks and Vinge being top choices. Vinge I would have expected due to his background in Computer Science, but M. Banks is a very positive surprise.