Your Library IV: 5 Favorite Sci-Fi/Fantasy Novels

[Zomby Woof]

This is a genre that admittedly does not run deep in my library, but a good story is a good story, and I am sure you aficionados out there have some good selections.

1. Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
2. The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
3. Foundation and Earth - Isaac Asimov
4. 2001: A Space Odyssey - Arthur C. Clarke
5. Contact - Carl Sagan

I have yet to read any of Frank Herbert's Dune series. It's on the Someday List, though. :hide:

No need to limit your list, I am not strict about these things. :-)

[nini]

1. I'm just posting so you can see my new sig line

:D

[Zomby Woof]

3. SWEET!!!

:loveya: Cutest Grandson EVER. :bounce:

*takes french fry away* :D

[nini]

6. LOL.. french fries..

he gets me EVERY time.



I'm leaving in about a half hour or so.


:loveya:

[ZombieNixon]

2. Hmmm...OK

1. Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
2. The Foundation Trilogy - Isaac Asimov
3. His Dark Materials Trilogy - Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
5. Dune (the original) - Frank Herbert

:)

[Zomby Woof]

5. I love all 7 Foundation books

I only count the ones Asimov wrote in his lifetime, like the trilogy you listed. :-)

[ZombieNixon]

7. I just finished reading it this summer.

I had meant to for a long long time, but never got around to it. I'm really glad I finally did. :)

[sir_captain]

4. Alright

1) The Caves of Steel -- Isaac Asimov
2) Foundation - Isaac Asimov
3) 2001 -- Arthur C. Clarke/Stanley Kubrick (they collaborated on both the novel and the screenplay)
4) Prelude to Foundation -- Isaac Asimov
5) Second Foundation -- Isaac Asimov
6) Ender's Game -- Orson Scott Card

Edit: Forgot about Snow Crash -- that'd be #3

[MrCoffee]

8. if i must....

1. Neuromancer - William Gibson (this might well be the best work of science fiction i've ever read, and it's in my top 3 all time favorite book list)
2. Snow Crash - Neil Stephenson (i had a bit of a cyberpunk phase for a while, but the main character's name is Hiro Protagonist, so you know it's good)
3. Perdido Street Station - China Meiville (this dude can write)
4. Anything and everything by Philip K. Dick (you WILL love it)(go with the Valis/Divine Invasion/Transmigration of Timothy Archer trilogy)
5. A Canticle for Leibowitz - Walter M. Miller Jr. (i figured i needed a classic to give me street cred)

[Rabrrrrrr]

9. Moran. You left off Dune.

But then, by lumping sci-fi and fantasy, it's impossible to do five books without leaving a lot out.

1. Dune

2. The entire 32 book or whatever the hell it is now, Robot-Foundation-Beyond Trilogy

3. Belgeriad and Mallorean, by David Eddings

4. The whole Rama series, Arthur C. Clarke

5. Lord of the Rings, Tolkien



And I must add in Cryptonomicon, Ender's Game, Riverworld, the three books about Gerald Tarrant the name of which I can't remember but are FUCKING AMAZING, 1984, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, Clockwork Orange, Animal Farm, Slaughterhouse 5

[Zomby Woof]

15. Go ahead and list 50

Or 100. Or 873. Lawless liberal scum like you are always looking for loopholes and shortcuts. It pisses me off that loony leftwingers like you come into my threads and EXPECT FREE HANDOUTS. Typical leftist pantywaist handwringing!11!! It's elitist of you to complain of my omissions without noting your own. Where's the Jedi Academy Series? Where's the L. Ron Hubbard? Liberal hypocrites, carping and whining. Oh the sky is FALLING! The sky is FALLING! Your Chicken Little Lily-livered Lie-brul ASS wouldn't know sci-fi if it bit you in your latte-sipping, Volvo-worshipping, brie-eating, Chardonnay-guzzling, meth-addled, crack-induced, herpes-ridden, croissant-stuffing, bible-hating, boil-encrusted, hemorrhoidal, rectal cavity.

I am hitting alert.

[MrCoffee]

16. Whoa...

we can list 873? now you tell us? fuck.

[Zomby Woof]

18. We're not the AL here

The DH rule is bad enough, so why would I make you list only 5?

[Rabrrrrrr]

17. You're hitting alert? I'm hitting alert TWICE, then.

Assmincer.

[Spider Jerusalem]

10. Mine:

A Scanner Darkly, Philip K. Dick
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
Cat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut
Neuromancer, William Gibson

Edited to add:

Cryptonomicon and Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson

[Zomby Woof]

12. I rank the Orwell and Vonnegut as high as anything

As high as anything on my standard fiction list. I can see how they're cross-genre works, but I will say that their absence from my list by no means diminishes my estimation of them.

I have to add Phillip K. Dick to my Someday List.

[Spider Jerusalem]

14. Yeah...they're the rare works that can be classed as genre fiction...

that totally transcend genre. (Part of me was thinking about putting Gravity's Rainbow on this list, speaking of transcending genre, but since it was on my list of favourite general fiction works already I didn't.)

And Dick is definitely worth the read; in addition to A Scanner Darkly, I'd recommend The Man in the High Castle, Valis. and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.

[REP]

43. Had To Check Your List!

I had a feeling that your list would either resemble mine or be a good reading list.

Slaughterhouse-5, Vonnegut
Sirens of Titan, Vonnegut (not his best, admittedly, but I've always liked it)
1984, Orwell
Brave New World, Huxely
Spares, Smith
A Canticle for Liebowitz, Miller


Not a novel, but deserving mention:

The Marching Morons, Kornbluth

[Spider Jerusalem]

44. "Spares" is one that I haven't read...

but after reading a few reviews I see that I'll have to.

I had a hard time picking just one Vonnegut novel (had the same problem with Dick, who I tend to think of as being the real Kilgore Trout).

[REP]

45. Theodore Sturgeon is the Real Kilgore Trout

"Now available without lurid covers!" - blurb on my copy of "Venus on the Half-Shell"

"One of Us" is good, too (also by Smith).

On edit: Slaughterhouse-5 usually makes my list of best anything; I think it's his best work even though I've read and enjoyed all of Vonnegut's novels.

[Spider Jerusalem]

48. Been years since I've read any Sturgeon...

and I haven't read many of his novels; mostly short stories (had quite a collection of anthologies and old Fantasy and Science Fiction magazines when I was a kid).

I'll have to check out One of Us, too; anything that can be described as 'Philip K. Dick meets William Gibson' is something I have to check out.

Jeff Noon's Vurt and Pollen were pretty good, too (only books of his I've read, though).

[REP]

50. I Have Reaaally Old Galaxys

From the 40s and 50s. Die-hard Kornbluth fan. Pretty Astounding that he was writing professionally at 15 and that those stories, while dated (like The Rocket of 1955) don't suck.

Smith isn't quite as paranoid as Dick or as tech-crazy as Gibson, and he's funnier than either. Wait 'till you get to the dimension-device in 'Spares' (itself a nod to Heinlein's Door into Summer).

Speaking of Dick - what, no Man in the High Tower? That's usually everyone's fave (probably the novel I like best too, come to think of it).

[Spider Jerusalem]

51. "The Man in the High Castle" is up there on my list, too...

probably my favourite work of alternate history, too (there aren't many really GOOD alternate-history novels, come to think of it; the only other one I've read that I thought was better than average was The Difference Engine by Gibson and Sterling).

[REP]

53. White Lotus Isn't Bad

Yes, it's a novel with an agenda, but it's well-done.

[REP]

46. An Anthology You Might Like

It's out of print, but readily (and cheaply) availalble: Light Years and Dark, edited by Bishop. Some great, rarely-seen stories under one cover.

[Spider Jerusalem]

49. That does look pretty good...

just looking at the authors represented...J.G. Ballard, Joe Haldeman, Roger Zelazny, Barry Malzberg (my favourite Malzberg story was called 'Icons'--about people who've bought Hemingway androids that are all 'defective'--they become morose, start talking about the 'ultimate nada', and eventually lock themselves in small rooms with firearms--so Icons, Inc. offers to replace all the Hemingways with Kennedys; the line at the end is something like: 'I'm sure there'll be somehting wrong with the Kennedys, too, but they'll probably find a way to make it look like it's our fault'. Heh.)

[REP]

52. The Carter Scholz Story is Hilarious

I love Malzberg too and Effinger; he's the one who wrote "The Aliens Who Knew Everything, and I Mean Everything" about the visitors with their vacuum tube ships (superior to solid state) who decided the noblest emotion was melancholy, etc....

[SeattleGirl]

11. Mine

1. The Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley
2. Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
3. 2001: A Space Odyssey - Arthur C. Clark
4. The Apprentice - Orson Scott Card
5. Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card

[MrCoffee]

13. The Apprentice? Really?

[SeattleGirl]

20. Did I get the title wrong?

I can't find the book itself; just going from memory.

[MrCoffee]

21. Sounded right to me, I just don't get why you put that in your list.

[SeattleGirl]

26. How come?

Just curious.

[MrCoffee]

27. Ender's Game was all right...

but the rest of Card's work doesn't really do anything for me. Personal preference. My opinion is worthless, so there's that.

[SeattleGirl]

31. Your opinion isn't worthless; just different than mine.

:hi:

[Broken_Hero]

19. damn

I haven't read many science fiction books, aka space/aliens and what not...

The ones I have read...

1. Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan

2. Star Trek III The Search for Spock

3. Dream Catcher by Stephen King

4. IT by Stephen King

5. Batman vs Predator(I cheated, its a comic, book still great!)

I think thats it!

The term science fiction is broad, so I limited my choices to ones that deal with outer space, aliens, things like that...

[MrCoffee]

22. Is it kosher to tell a mod that their list is crap?

[nosillies]

23. Lots of repeats here

And I am too damn lazy to number and italicize right now.

Dune -- Frank Herbert
His Dark Materials Trilogy -- Philip Pullman
Contact -- Carl Sagan

All the above were on my best fiction list!

"All Summer in a Day" -- Ray Bradbury Not a novel, but who cares, it's my favorite sci-fi story EVER

All the Narnia books

Jumper and Reflex by Steven Gould

[mainegreen]

24. okee

in no order:

Tad Williams - Memory Sorrow and Thorn Trilogy
JRR Tolkien - Um, you know this one
Douglas Adams - The increasingly misnamed Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy
Umberto Eco - Foucault’s Pendulum (kinda fantasy as it deals with mysticism and the illuminati)
HP Lovecraft - At the mountains of madness (I always felt the Cthulhu Cycle mythos is horror/sci fi)

[Tikki]

25. Some of mine:

The Time Machine....H.G. Wells
The Butterfly Kid.....Chester Anderson
The Postman........David Brin
Martian Chronicles.....Ray Bradbury
Stranger in a Strange Land .....Robert A. Heinlein

There are many, many more....

Tikki

[jus_the_facts]

28. mine...

Robots and Murder ~ Isaac Asimov

Lord of the Rings ~ J.R.R. Tolkein

The Rama Series ~ A. C. Clarke

The Door Into Summer ~ Robert Heinlein

The Collected Stories of H.P. Lovecraft

[Arkham House]

29. Cripes...impossible to name just five...

...but what the hell...

1. Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
2. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Robert A Heinlein
3. Dune, Frank Herbert
4. You're All Alone, Fritz Leiber
5. More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon

Since everybody will name Tolkien, I won't...but he's really #1...

[YankeyMCC]

32. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

good one, I hadn't thought of that one in a long time. I really should break out my RAH collection and do some re-reading

[Arkham House]

41. Don't forget "Beyond This Horizon"

This was an amazing novel, the only Utopian novel I've ever read that makes me actually want to go visit the place and give it a try...a testimony to RAH's vitality as a writer...the economic system is an interesting hybrid of socialism and capitalism, which seems a bit ironic in retrospect, considering Heinlein's right-wing reputation. And as a novel, it's a remarkable effort for a pulp mag in 1942--you see RAH trying to break the pulp mold, quite consciously--and, I think, successfully...

[YankeyMCC]

42. He changed as he got older

I've actually never read "Beyond This Horizon" but I did read "For us the Living" based on a 1939 manuscript but not published until 2003 and it sounds a lot like what you say "Beyond the Horizon" is like.

[Arkham House]

54. As a novel, "Beyond This Horizon" is incomparably better

"For Us the Living" is the work of a brilliant novice..."Beyond This Horizon" is the work of the great writer who had revolutionized SF in the previous three years, and was already recognized as the field's greatest name. You can see a little of the latter work in the former, but the difference is night and day...

[YankeyMCC]

30. This is the bulk of my non-fiction library

so it's hard to pick out 5 but lets see...

1. Robot/Empire/Foundation Series by Asimov (Ok perhaps that's cheating lumping so many books into one but to bad :) )

2. Stranger in a Strange Land - RAH

3. LoTR - JRR Tolkien

4. Enemy Papers - Barry Longyear

5. The Wreck of the River of Stars - Michael Flynn (This is a new one, relatively speaking to the rest)

[MrCoffee]

34. i could not finish wreck of the river of stars

i kept falling asleep. and i wanted to like it. i really did.

[YankeyMCC]

36. I have to say try it again if you can bring yourself to

The first time I picked it up I nearly tossed it back on the shelf...in fact I did and didn't pick it up again for several days...very VERY unlike me.

But then I pushed through and was very glad I did. And I've read it twice since.

My problem was that I was weaned on old time styles like Asimov and RAH which are very plot driven - at least their early stuff - and Wreck is about as far from that as can be. The character development in Wreck is just incredible.

[MiniMandaRuth]

33. .....

Lord of the Rings- Tolkien

Dune- That guy

Enders Game- The Other guy

Can't Remember- Other guy.

Can't Remember V. 2.0- The one guy with the thing.

[ZombieNixon]

37. Oh, I remember Can't Remember V. 2.0

Man, that guy's thing was creepy. :scared:

:P

[liontamer]

35. I like the challenge of sticking to 5

A wrinkle in time, Madeline L'Engle
Dragonrider Series, Anne McCaffrey
Witchlight, Marion Zimmer Bradley
Black Jewels Trilogy Anne Bishop
Dawn, Octavia Butler

[nosillies]

40. I forgot about all the Madeline L'Engle books

They were a highlight of my childhood.

[sarge43]

38. My faves

The City and the Stars, Arthur C. Clarke
The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
Grendel, John Gardner
Star Maker, Olaf Stapledon
The Best of Stanley G. Weinbaum

[WindRavenX]

39. mine:

1.LoTR--J.R.R. Tolkein
2.Contact--Carl Sagan
3.His Dark Materials trilogoy--Phillip Pullman
4.The Chronicles of Narnia-- C.S. Lewis
5. Otherland-- Tad Williams

I read LOTR every year.

[datasuspect]

47. anything by P.K. Dick

the most interesting sci-fi i have ever read.

he ruined me for all the others.