Best sci-fi novels ?

Post Reply New Topic

Always want to discuss/swap sci-fi novels with people, so finally figured I should make a topic on a forum I barely post on.

Heres my top 5 anyway, would love to hear yours - and recomendations are always appreciated.

Top 5 :

1) Star Maker (Olaf Stapledon) - guy invented the concept of the dyson sphere, the book in question is brilliant - truly "alien" aliens (a true rarity in of itself in fiction), unique civilizations and an history of the universe in one book. Genius.

2) Mission of Gravity (Hal Clement) - One of the better depictions of Hard Sci-fi imo, an obtuse planet is a truly fascinating idea and it's very realistically brought to life in this book. Also an alien centipede as one of the protagonists is yet another rare thing you'd only ever seen in books.

3) Shadow Out Of Time (HP Lovecraft) - My personal favourite HP Lovecraft story, most tend to prefer At the mountains of madness, which is great - but there are parts of this story that just win me over - the alien wars that are mentioned between the Great race and polyps being one of my favourite parts. The Polyps themselves have to be my favourite sci-fi alien race ever. Militant and truly nightmarish.

4) 2001 a space odyessy (Arthur C Clarke) - Awesome movie. Awesome book. I still like to wonder what the heck those monoliths were. Truly mysterious and awesome hard sci-fi with enough weirdness for flavour.

5) Eon (Gregg Bear) - this ones full of "big" concepts to melt your brain too. It's epic in the way that is actually epic (not hollywood epic). One of the best recomendations from a friend ever

What are yours and why?

I like for example the Dune novels, or Orwells 1984, or Isaac Asimov (But unfortunately I have read almost nothing from him).
I think 2001 was also good.

I really need to read the Dune books, I do like "darker" science-fantasy like that (the 40k universe was quite appealing before the Matt ward era).

Asimov's Foundation series was brilliant IMO. Hoping they never make films out of those.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
Brave New World
2001 A Space Odsyssey

I think Brave New World is good but 1984 is in my opinion better.

I've only read 2001 from your top 5.

I would recommend reading Isaac Asimovs Foundation series. Very intelligent stuff. If you like 2001 then you should like Asimov.

Foundation series is one of the best "sci-fi mytholodies" ever IMO. I agree it is very indepth and intelligent, leaves a lot to think about afterwards which is what I enjoy the most about science fiction.

I think Star Maker is mandatory reading, well in my opinion it is but I am obviously bias since it is my favourite book ever

1. I agree on the Foundations series.

2. "Ender's Game" -Orson Scott Card
3. "The Demolished Man" Alfred Bester
4. "Neuromancer" _William Gibson
5. "Stranger in a Strange Land" Robert Heinlein

The classic mentioned by the others are all great. I also recommend reading any of Robert J Sawyer's books as they are all awesome and he is still writing them. Not to mention his last 4 novels have Aspie characters.

The Mote in God's Eye

Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell. This was the basis of all three Thing movies. The John Carpenter movie comes closest.

The Sorrow Of Odin The Goth by Poul Anderson. Maybe his best Time Patrol novella.

Pulp by Charles Bukowski. Who'd have guessed that Hank's last novel would be sci-fi?

Lest Darkness Fall by L. Sprague De Camp. Classic time travel story where the purpose is to change history for the better.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

A. E. van Vogt:
Slan
The World of Null-A
The Players of Null-A
Null-A Three
Empire of the Atom

I'm going to work on some of Asimov's works soon, but surprised to see no mention of Joe Haldeman, I really enjoyed his Forever War, haven't read the sequels yet.

Ender's game was already mentioned
Ender's shadow is just as amazing. The others in the series are decent, but not great

I wonted to list that one

another vote for 1984 ,

also The End Of Eternity by Asimov