Best sci-fi novels ?

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I agree. I like his Robot novels, too. I like how he created all those different societies, like on the Spacer worlds, and on the different sectors of Trantor. It's a shame he didn't get to writing a sequel to Foundation and Earth. For some reason, I'm thinking that when Daneel merged with Fallom, enough of Fallom remains that has access to Daneel's memories, and with those and Fallom's own experience with Trevize, decides it would be best to create Galaxia, but instead of creating it as it is, creates a Galaxia of a billion or so Solarias.

on several occasions i've pondered versions of this question:

http://www.rebeccablood.net/archive/200 ... comment-78

http://www.waggish.org/2010/my-secret-s ... mment-2586

http://www.jeffvandermeer.com/2011/04/2 ... ment-52155

http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2010/0 ... ment-88700

some of these discissions are more interesting than my actual contributions to them.

My Lord, I forgot to mention - -

Slaughter House Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Billy Pilgrim is either out of his mind, or he's shifting through time and space by means of extraterrestrials.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

All 6 of the original Frank Herbert Dune novels - not any of that stuff his son did. The original Dune itself is the best of the 6 (despite the mostly bungled attempts to turn it into a movie / miniseries) but most of the other five are vastly underrated. Dune Messiah and Chapterhouse, especially.

Anathem by Neal Stephenson.
Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan

But I haven't really read all that much sci-fi.

Ugh. What exactly did you enjoy about it? I read this recently for a book club and slammed it hard in my Goodreads review. It's sexist, pro-war dribble dressed up as a "bold" anti-war novel. Beyond that dishonesty, it's terrible, clichéd writing as well--his abuse of italics alone should've kept that book from being published. Couldn't find a single thing in it to praise, frankly, despite all the praise from the male-chorus of scifi-dom. I guess an alt future where female soldiers are required to be compliant and willing sex toys for male soldiers and where war doesn't have any real, lasting consequences for those who fight it is appealing to them. Seems like little more than a puerile fantasy to me.

Not exactly my all-time top 5, because that changes day by day, but the ones I'll mention at this time as being among my favs:

1. Philip K Dick - Most of his stuff, but in particular A Scanner Darkly
2. Arthur C Clarke - Childhood's End
3. Robert Silverberg - Dying Inside
4. Robert Heinlein - The Moon is Harsh Mistress
5. Ray Bradbury - anything he wrote that sci fi or relatively sci fi-ish

Also, HG Wells, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and the much overlooked works of Lester Del Rey (esp. the novella Victory which is a good antidote to The Forever War) and Cyril M. Kornbluth (his short story "The Marching Morons" is a most read for any sci fi lit fan).

I'm really shocked to see no mention of John Steakley's Armor, I just finished it half an hour ago and it was one of the best books I've read in a while. I highly recommend it, truly sad that Steakly died before he could finish the sequel

Hmm, I really liked "Forever War". Somehow it reminded me of "All Quiet on the Western Front." Go figure. But yeah, I thought it was really well written, the world and all that military stuff seemed very real, a lot of small details to make it so, things happening made sense in that kind of futuristic anti-utopian setting. Heroes were not just good/bad in 2D kind of way, I had a blast reading it...good book IMO.

I found it too similar to Starship troopers which I also didnt like. For some reason military sci-fi depictions of aliens are always painfully boring - often some form of space bug or derivative of HR Gigers xenomorph design. If they had something truly alien and out of this world, like something like lovecraft's polyps id probably be able to get into it more.