So the book Contact was brought up in another thread, and I myself just started reading a a great sci-fi series so I was wondering what books and writers people liked.
I'll start by saying first off, that I'm not talking about any 'franchise' type books, like Star Trek and Star Wars etc. So if you want to talk about those maybe you should head on down to the Bat-elth thread.
First of all I wanted to see if anyone had read the series I just started so I could get their opinions on it and the science in it. I'm just started reading Stephen Baxter's Manifold series. There are three books in it as far as I know. Manifold: Time, Manifold: Space, and Manifold: Origin. Please don't spoil anything for me if you have read them, as I'm just finishing up the first book, but are there any opinions on this series or writer? I am quite enjoying it, lots of great ideas, and the science seems very sound. He's been given praise from Arthur Clarke and been compared to being a writer to stand with Asimov and Clarke. Wondered if anyone else had him their bookshelf and what they thought.
Other classics are of course Asimov's Robot and Foundation series', Dune was great in the beginning although it has become more 'franchise' orientated after the ideas in the first book or two.
I once read a series called The Gap Series, by Stephen Donaldson. He was normally a fantasy writer, but did a fairly good job in sci-fi in that series I thought.
Any other 'must reads' out there? Any thoughts on the books I mentioned? Let me know what you think.