The sad passing of A. C. Clarke has created in me, well, something of an intention to start reading some classic SF. In some other thread, i’ve seen talk about Bob and Isaac, which I guess refers to Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov. I’ve heard about them and seen some movies but, oh silly me, never read anything by any of them. So where do I start?
Big question. What you end up reading depends upon your tastes, and there’s a lot of range in science fiction. There’s hard SF and soft SF, philosophical Sf and shoot-em-ups. Adult SF (in the best sense of the word) and juvenile SF.
My suggestion is to get some anthologies, which let you sample a range of writers. There’s a Best SF of the Year out every year, for new stuff. For old, there’s The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, which really does live up to its name (at least volumes I, IIA, and IIB do. I think the others, which don’t, are out of print). And they’re defnitely getting long in the tooth, but if you can find Adventures i n Time and Space or A Treasury of Great Science Fiction (try used book shops or Alibris), it’s definitely worth it.
I’d recommend any of Heinlein’s juveniles, Asimov’s robot stories or Foundation stories (the older ones, in both cases). Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama is great (but ignore the sequels). Most people seem to love Childhood’s End, which I don’t think is Clarke’s best work.
After that, come back and you can get tons of suggestions here. Heck, you will in this thread alone.
With Asimov, it’s kind of difficult as he had a couple of different novel series going, and then retconned them into one another (the retconning didn’t really work, from what I understand). I’d say with Asimov, his Caves of Steel is a good place. Nightfall’s not too bad. I, Robot, is a bit dry, but vastly better than the Will Smith movie that stole the title. His non-fiction collection of essays The Left Hand of the Electron is excellent reading, IMHO.
For Heinlein, it’s best to start with his “juveniles.” Have Space Suit, Will Travel, is a fun read. Space Cadet is a grand, rollicking adventure, even if does have an inhabitable Venus. Despite what you might have heard Starship Troopers was not made into a movie. It is one of Heinlein’s hardest SF books, and can be a bit preachy at times, but damned fine military SF. For his “adult” fare (and his “juvenile” stuff is really, really well written, so don’t think of them as “kids books”) The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is excellent (has a precursor to the internet in it, as well as a self-aware computer which hurls Moon rocks at the Earth). *The Man Who Sold the Moon* is a collection of short stories, which is a favorite of the guy in charge of the X-Prize Foundation. *The Cat Who Walks Through Walls* is a sequel, of sorts, to The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and the heroine on the cover looks like one of my ex-girlfriends. Back to the juvies for a moment, if you want to know where Star Trek stole the idea of tribbles from, then check out *The Rolling Stones*.
For Clarke, it’s a bit of a harder choice as 99% of what he wrote is excellent (although, I’d not bother with 3001, concept’s sound, execution, not so much). My favorite book of his is *Songs of Distant Earth*, though, really, other than 3001 and the books where he had co-authors, I wouldn’t turn down one of his works.
One thing to keep in mind is that they were all writing several decades ago. All three wrote excellent SF but you might find some of it a bit dated (as Tuckerfan mentions *Space Cadet * has an inhabitable Venus). I would also say that - to me - Asimov was not a brilliant literary writer, his characters are a bit wooden, but the sweep of his stories is pretty vast.
Other than that I would just suggest avoiding Heinlein’s later books (say after 1970) for your first choice. His style did change (they are much longer for a start!) and there are lots of back references to characters and events in earlier works.
I’d like to add a caveat to this, because Heinlein’s later works are subject to the widest spread of opinions I’ve seen for someone who is considered an elder statesman of his genre. It seems like people either love them or hate them. I, for one, love them. I find the Howard Families universe fascinating, and I actually like The Number of the Beast and J.O.B.! gasp
Read what you want to read, and decide for yourself.
Probably the best start for Heinlein is the underrated Double Star.
I’d also consider the following:
Hal Clement – Mission of Gravity (probably the most influential SF book these days*)
Alfred Bester - The Stars My Destination
Edgar Pangbourn – Davy (if you can find it)
Ursula K. LeGuin – The Left Hand of Darkness
Larry Niven – Ringworld
Daniel Keyes – Flowers for Algernon (aka Charly)
Walter M. Miller – A Canticle for Lebowitz
Frank Herbert – Dune (do not bother with any of the sequels, though).
*Hal invented hard SF, and it’s been pointed out that cyberpunk is an extension of that (he was once jokingly referred to as the father of cyberpunk – a title that amused him). Those are two of the three main streams of SF today (in addition to space opera).
Actually I like Heinlein’s later work - the multiverse and pantheistic multiperson solipsism etc - but I am not sure it is the place to start!
If you want to branch out from the original three I would support RealityChuck’s list but add in Niven and Pournelle’s The Mote in God’s Eye.
As CalMeacham noted the OP needs to be a bit more specific in his tastes before we go too wide.
For Clarke I would recommend looking for a short story collection in addition to what’s been mentioned. He is very idea oriented, but his plots tend to be a bit thin. I find his short stories better because of this, because they can focus on a single idea, rather than trying to create an entire narrative.
I would also add Stephen Baxter to the list. His Manifold series is an interesting look at the idea of whether or not life exists on other planets (they can be read in any order, but I would suggest the publishing order because Origin has a refernce back to Time) There’s no continuity between the works really–they each use the same characters in different universes, and each has a different answer to the question “Are we alone?”
For a historical overview of the field before you begin, I suggest Trillion Year Spree, by Brian Aldiss and David Wingrove.
(emphasis mine)
This needed emphasis.
Absolutely. Anything that includes the byline “and Gentry Lee” can be safely passed over.
I had my wisdom teeth out in high school and it was all I had to read. Ghastly, I tell you.
Don’t miss Cordwainer Smith, whose works are now far more available than they ever used to be. The Rediscovery of Man is a collection of all his short fiction and is awesome.
First off, let me second CalMeacham’s vote for The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, the three volumes he mentioned include the original short story versions of:
Arena
Flowers for Algernon
The Cold Equations
and many, many other influential works.
I also want to second Reality Chuck’s vote for starting with Heinlein’s adult books with Double Star. It is dated, with contrary to known cosmology all over the place. But it’s still a great story.
I’d also suggest The Puppet Masters. Some of the greatest scenes in SF are in that book. (While the movie version of this was truer to the book than the movie version of Starship Troopers, the book is still vastly different from the movie.)
For Asimov, I think the best of his works is the collection of short stories I, Robot. Again, it’s very, very far from what the movie of the same title was.
For Clarke, I much preferred his short fiction to his longer stuff. This isn’t to say that his longer works are bad, just that often they’re not to my taste.
The collections The Other Side of the Sky, and Tales from the White Hart are probably my two favorites from him.
For more authors to consider:
Larry Niven’s Neutron Star. Another collection of short fiction set in his Known Space Universe.
There are a number of collections that include Orson Scott Card’s original novella length version of Ender’s Game. I still believe that that version is a better story than the award winning longer novel version.
(Note, this list is meant to be supplementary to those provided by other posters, not instead of them.)
I agree that Cordwainer Smith is awesome, but he’s not for everyone. Some people will find his quirky style annoying or just too weird.
“far more available than he used to be” is only true if you order your books via mail or internet, or shop used book stores a lot. All of his stuff is available (in three hard-bound volumes) from NESFA press, but you won’t find it in any bookstore. You stoof a much better chance of finding Smith in your average bookstore in the 1960s (when Pyramid press or Ace had his stuff out in paperbavk) or in the 1970s and early 1980s (when Ballantine/Del Rey reprinted it in three paperback volumes).
The NESFA volumes are worth it – every story reprinted in the definitive version, and Norstrilia with all its variations.
(NESFA is New England Science Fiction Association. They also reprinted Hal Clement’s stuff, and William Tenn’s, and lotsa other great stuff that deserves to be in print. But I’ve never seen a bookstore that carries their stuff on the shelves)
Other books worth seeking out:
Any of James Tiptree, Jr.'s story collections – Ten Thousand Light Years from Home and Warm Worlds and Otherwise for a start. There are also the novels, if you can find them: Up the Walls of the World and Brightness Falls from the Air.
Though not for all tastes, R. A. Lafferty was a great short story writer. I’d suggest 900 Grandmothers for a look.
And I am a big fan of Cordwainer Smith, too, but agree he can be offputting. Try reading “The Game of Rat and Dragon” or “The Ballad of Lost C’Mell” for a taste.
Another author not for everyone is Samuel R. Delany. Babel-17 is probably the best place to start, and Dhalgren was massively popular in its day, but probably not for beginners. Go to Driftglass if you want his short stories – many great ones there…
And then there’s Harlan Ellison. Harlan’s best known for short stories. I don’t know if there’s been a collection of his best, but some to read include “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream,” “A Boy and His Dog,” “The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World,” “Adrift Just Off the Isles of Langerhans,” “‘Repent, Harlequin,’ said the Ticktockman,”“Jefty is Five,” One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty," “The Deathbird,” and many others. Take a look at Hugo and Nebula winning stories and you’ll get a good list.
Ellison also edited one of the best SF anthologies ever, Dangerous Visions. The sequel, Again Dangerous Visions is almost as good, and The Last Dangerous Visions is a legend in SF*. 
Finally, I’ll add a favorite of mine, John Varley. His short story collection The Persistence of Vision, is one of the best ever, and his stories “Press Enter ” and “The Pusher” are classics (they’re collected elsewhere. His novel Titan is the reason I became a science fiction writer, and Millenneum is also quite good. I also liked The Golden Globe and the Heinleinesque Red Thunder (don’t bother with the sequels, though).
*It was announced that it would be released in late 1974. We’re still waiting for it.
I’ll second everything that **RealityChuck ** mentioned, and add in support of some other posters: any collection edited by Gardner Dozois is a must-read. You’ll get a cross-section of really great SF of various sub-genres, and you can use it to expand your reading based on the stuff you really liked.
Most good advice is already done. I would add Jack Vance, for great depictions of alien societies and, if you are not afraid of something not exactly canonical (at least in the west), Strugatsky brothers. You might like Roadside Picnic or you might like it not, but either way it’s interesting piece and probably best depiction of Outside Context Problem ever. And you can find it in the web, both in original and translated - apparently they decided to put it in the public domain.
Where to start with the Big Three.
Asimov - I, Robot. Not the Foundation books.
Heinlein - The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. Stranger in a Strange Land may work for you, but it’s sexual politics makes it very dated today. I reread Double Star a few years ago and was amazed at how awful it was, and a long essay could be written about how bad the female characters are.
Clarke - Rendezvous with Rama for the techno-wonder, followed by Childhood’s End.
An annotated list of works and authors not mentioned, all of whom are far better writers in various ways. In order by publication date.
Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles (poetry distilled as prose, not hard science but better at how people will be affected by the onrushing future; be sure to get the complete original, with “Way Up in the Middle of the Sky” included)
Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle (his masterpiece, and very unlike any of his other works; if you want to try something more in his usual style, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch)
Roger Zelazny, Lord of Light (his best single novel; his Amber series - the first of the two is better - is more popular)
John Brunner, Stand on Zanzibar (incredible dense wild look at the future, he is vastly underrated)
Poul Anderson, Tau Zero (you want hard science? here’s a trip through the universe)
William Gibson, Neuromancer (the book that launched cyberpunk, Bruce Sterling does more interesting commentary on the future, though: try Distraction)
Neil Stephenson, *Cryptonomicon * (is it sf? who cares? 900 pages of prose that knock your eyeballs out)
M. John Harrison, *Light * (unparalleled modern look at giving the future a sense of wonder with a layer of fungus)
The Nebula Award collections have been issued since 1965. You can read year by year how much the field has changed over time.
Kurt Vonnegut often writes science fiction. I’d particularly recommend The Sirens of Titan and Cat’s Cradle.