Your favorite Sci-Fi books, series and writers.

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Peirs Anthony (not sure if he's considered sci-fi or fantasy..)

[jeremywilhelm]

Hunters Run - Gardener Dozois

Wild Cards (series) - collective works of various authors edited by George R R Martin. (tough to find books though, pretty rare for the older ones)

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by Puxlut

Peirs Anthony (not sure if he's considered sci-fi or fantasy..)

At this point, fantasy, but his older works involved a lot of Sci-fi. The only science fiction I've got in my collection is his... I lost interest in the genre a while ago in favour of fantasy. His Battle Circle trilogy is one of my favourite books/series of all time though.

[photon]

Very much like Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, just listening to Mote in God's Eye right now.

Originally Posted by Ashartus

Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan; haven't had a chance to read the remaining books in those series yet. Vernor Vinge is brilliant IMO

Agree that the Altered Carbon series was very cool, though it's pretty explicit sex wise which is different. Also agree with Vernor Vinge!

Originally Posted by Ashartus

For older stuff, I don't think anything compares to Dune. When I was younger I just liked the first books and didn't like the later ones, but re-reading them several years later I got much more of an appreciation of where he was going with the later books - too bad his son and Kevin Anderson botched the last one so badly.

Totally agree! The Dune series is the ultimate, and the new ones are so bad Herbert's spinning in his grave.

Originally Posted by Daradon

No one has heard of Stephen Baxter?

Very much a fan, I love his stuff because it's HARD sci-fi, and lots of deep deep time.

[Traditional_Ale]

Spares
Michael Marshall Smith

Take one surreal, futuristic city, built in the wreckage of a five-mile square shopping-mall-airship. Blend with copious amounts of illegal, mind-altering substances. Gently fold in a network of villains with all the odds in their favour. Take one hero – he should be morally challenged, confused, and fighting to exact vengeance for the deaths of family members. Leave to expand. In a separate bowl introduce a cause – let’s say cloned children (Spares), retained as spare parts to mend the rich and generally mistreated. With great care add a pinch of danger – something unknown, possibly from the past, possibly with a mystical element which poses yet another challenge for the hero. These should be heated slowly in a saucepan along with several insane action sequences and horrors so shocking you almost (but not quite) have to put the book down, never to return. Throw everything into a dark, dubious-looking tin and decorate with an abundance of dry, sophisticated humour and sentient machinery with attitude problems!

The moral of this story is best summed up with the quote “Memories are nothing more than a book you’ve read and lost, not a bible for the rest of your life”. So basically, get with the program. This is the recurring theme in Jack Randall’s life. The moral only makes it into words at the end of the book and is significantly less important than the journey which precedes it. Spares is the story of Jack Randall, an ex-cop from a corrupted force with a growing trail of dead friends and family members. He doesn’t consider himself a safe man to know. After abandoning hope, Jack lands a job at a ‘Spares farm’ and succumbs to his drug addictions. He is woken from days of unconsciousness with an urge to takes his current position as caretaker one step further and gradually becomes a father-figure for the children. His caring approach leads him into several worlds of trouble and every man and his dog seems to want him dead.

Smith’s second novel Spares brought him fame, where his debut Only Forward brought him notoriety, and deservedly so. This is a phenomenal book, multi-layered, furiously paced and laugh-out-loud-funny. It is also deeply shocking, horrific and contains copious amounts of strong language. Historically sentient machinery is a safe bet – no self-respecting sci-fi series would be without the talking computer or automaton. Where Smith excels is in his ability to bestow futuristic advances on everyday objects (a fridge, an alarm clock) and he does so with a sly wit and an affectionate hand. This book is as entertaining as it is disturbing. It is a truly satisfying read.

[SinceDay1]

I've always enjoyed Stanislaw Lem, particularly The Cyberiad, Solaris, The Futurlogical Congress and Memoirs Found in a Bathtub.

[Aeneas]

A second to troutman's Philip Jose Farmer suggestion of Riverworld. And the Hamilton book.

I really enjoy Dan Simmons:

Hyperion
Phases Of Gravity
Ilium

Frederick Pohl, The Space Merchants

Joe Haldeman, The Forever War

Robert Silverberg

Some have mentioned The Mote... by Niven Pournelle, but how about,
The Legacy Of Heorot, by the above plus Steven Barnes.

Not sure if Gene Wolfe's The Book of the new Sun is sci fi or fantasy. It sure starts out classic fantasy, but nearer the end, you would have to say it is science fiction. Anyway, I recommend, The Shadow of the Torturer to start out.

One of the books I have returned to often, and given to others to read; is maybe not so well known.

George Alec Effinger's "The Wolves Of Memory"

"Beautifully crafted, sad and funny...best yet from one of SF's distinctive voices"

[jeremywilhelm]

Wow, traditional, that book sounds great!!

Thanks

haha just noticed...

http://www.curledup.com/spares.htm

[Stumptown]

I was going to bring up Lem, but SinceDay1 beat me to it. Possibly the most rip-roaring enjoyable sci-fi novel I've ever read was "The Stars, My Destination" by Alfred Bester. "Demolished Man" is also quite good.

[onetwo_threefour]

My favorites...

Asimov

Brian Daley - Not hugely popular, but I liked his work

Larry Niven

Orson Scott Card

There are others but these are off the top of my head.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Puxlut

Peirs Anthony (not sure if he's considered sci-fi or fantasy..)

I never liked his writing style, To me every sentance he writes seems backwards with the subject and the verb out of place. I liked some of his concepts but quit his stuff after reading two books (fantasy ones) because I just couldn't get around the way he wrote

[Ford Prefect]

I really like some of SM Stirling's stuff. In particular the Island In The Sea Of Time series, the Dies The Fire series, and The Sunrise Lands series ... all three series inter-relate. Most of his stories are alternate history/alternate reality stuff, including the three multi-book series above. I think he's a lot better than Turtledove, who seems to be considered the top dog of this genre.

Conquistador is a good single book tale if you want to just sample his stuff.

I did not enjoy Stirling's Peshawar Lancers or The Sky People.

I have enjoyed David Eddings, but he's more fantasy than SF. Same with Stephen R Donaldson.

Another fantasy writer I really like is Canada's (and formerly Calgary's) Jack Whyte. He has an Arthurian series that's wicked good, and he's currently working on a good Templar Knights series. He's categorized as fantasy at least, although I find his stuff to be more historical fiction than fantasy. He's good though regardless of how you want to classify him.

[photon]

Lol, I just had a sci-fi author email the board saying he just got a book published, sent the link to the publisher, and offer to sent a manuscript to review! Presumably because of this thread I guess, even though the author is from the UK.

That's so weird.

[C_Rush]

William Gibson's Neuromancer - must read for scifi fans, along with the rest of the Sprawl series.

Dune, as noted already.

Clarke's Space Odyssey series and Childhood's End.

Alastair Reynolds - anything, he's pretty good.

[ernie]

Tad Williams Otherland series....virtual reality plot line. His Fantasy series (Memory, Sorrow and Thorn in particular) are also good.

[STeeLy]

Originally Posted by GGG

Ender's game and enders shadow by orson scott card. He has written a bunch of other books in the same series but they aren't nearly as good as these to.

Those two are probably the best of the Ender's Game series of books. One of the few that I'll actually read and follow.

Robert A. Heinlein as people mentioned. I liked Stranger from a Strange Land and Farnham's Freehold...

I haven't read too many other books outside of them. I'm hoping to be able to read a lot of Orson Scott Card's books as well as Robert A. Heinlein books.

[Devils'Advocate]

I've read just about everything by John Wyndham.

[llama64]

Strangely, Battlefield Earth by L. Ron Hubbard is a decent read. No crazy scientology crud in it, just good sci-fi-ness. And with out any Travolta to be seen!

[Biff]

The Adept's series from Piers Anthony is also quite decent.

[jammies]

Those who have suggested:

Alistair Reynolds
Stephen Baxter
Peter Hamilton
Richard Morgan
Ian M Banks

are hereby seconded. I also somewhat enjoy SM Stirling, although a good editor who reduced some of the fat would make the books much better.

Charles Stross does some excellent hard SF; so also does Jack McDevitt. Sean McMullen's Greatwinter trilogy (Souls in the Great Machine, The Miocene Arrow, and Eyes of the Calculor) is excellent in every way. Neal Asher has his moments as well.