# Another book post..sorry..Please could you list your favourite SciFi/Fantasy book **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 21, 2000, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-book-post-sorry-please-could-you-list-your-favourite-scifi-fantasy-book/16484 "2000-04-21T16:06:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![concrete](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bbce88/32.png) [@concrete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/concrete)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2000, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-book-post-sorry-please-could-you-list-your-favourite-scifi-fantasy-book/16484/1 "2000-04-21T16:06:00Z")
The other book post got me to thinking. I’ve read quite literally thousands of books mostly fantasy and Science fiction. I’ll start off The Hobbit … that was the very first book I read when I was 7 years old, guess it got me hooked on the whole fantasy genre. I’m hoping to see lots of books mentioned in this post so I can remember them again. Thanks, concrete ps: I should mention for my favourite SciFi books is… Titan, Wizard, Demon by John Varley and Bio of a Space Tyrant by Piers Anthony. ---
**Author:** ![the\_Scarlet\_Pimpernel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f1d935/32.png) [@the\_Scarlet\_Pimpernel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_Scarlet_Pimpernel)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2000, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-book-post-sorry-please-could-you-list-your-favourite-scifi-fantasy-book/16484/2 "2000-04-21T16:37:00Z")
Well, these days it’s _Biting the Sun_ by Tanith Lee. But it changes regularly. * * * Hey, sweetie! You want a Danish with that coffee? – _another custom design by the mind of Wally_ A man said to the universe: “Sir, I exist!” “However,” replied the universe, “The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation.” – Stephen Crane ---
**Author:** ![Needs2know](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5e925/32.png) [@Needs2know](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Needs2know)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2000, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-book-post-sorry-please-could-you-list-your-favourite-scifi-fantasy-book/16484/3 "2000-04-21T16:42:00Z")
Armor Needs2know ---
**Author:** ![Gazoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ce73a5/32.png) [@Gazoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gazoo)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2000, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-book-post-sorry-please-could-you-list-your-favourite-scifi-fantasy-book/16484/4 "2000-04-21T16:49:00Z")
I guess these would qualify as sci/fi: The Dark Tower series by Stephen King and Lucifer’s Hammer (can’t think of the author off hand - it’s about a comet striking the Earth). * * * If at first you don’t succeed - redefine success! ---
**Author:** ![Ayesha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c0e974/32.png) [@Ayesha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ayesha)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2000, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-book-post-sorry-please-could-you-list-your-favourite-scifi-fantasy-book/16484/5 "2000-04-21T16:52:00Z")
Harry Turtledove’s WorldWar series David Weber’s Honor Harrington series Leo Frankowski’s Crosstime Engineer series Lois McMaster Bujold’s Miles Vorkosigan novels Piers Anthony’s Xanth series * * * “Ayesha, Who can bend minds with her spoon” sig. by WallyM7 profile by UncleBeer, thanks guys. Voted SDMB Biggest Flirt (Female) and Least Shy ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2000, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-book-post-sorry-please-could-you-list-your-favourite-scifi-fantasy-book/16484/6 "2000-04-22T05:15:00Z")
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! (Note: I am not deleting this post, but simply inserting line breaks. This is so that everyone can properly scorn plnnr without suffering the aggravation of screen scroll. -Lynn) [Note: This message has been edited by Lynn Bodoni] ---
**Author:** ![Jodi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7feea3/32.png) [@Jodi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jodi)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2000, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-book-post-sorry-please-could-you-list-your-favourite-scifi-fantasy-book/16484/7 "2000-04-22T05:18:00Z")
What the hell? Way to screw up the page plnnr. Here’s a suggestion: If you don’t like the topic of a thread _don’t open it_! And if you insist on opening it, please refrain from posting pointless, aggravating crap such as you just posted here. Thanks ever so. ## Oh, and _The Left Hand of Darkness_ by Ursula K. LeGuin Jodi _Fiat Justitia_ ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Cynical](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ee59a6/32.png) [@Mr.Cynical](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Cynical)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2000, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-book-post-sorry-please-could-you-list-your-favourite-scifi-fantasy-book/16484/8 "2000-04-22T05:22:00Z")
Let’s see…I like the entire Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. The books are large, too. And I agree about The Dark Tower series. I wish that Steve would just sit down and write it till it’s finished. I really, really love that stuff! ---
**Author:** ![rorschach](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/3d9bf3/32.png) [@rorschach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rorschach)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2000, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-book-post-sorry-please-could-you-list-your-favourite-scifi-fantasy-book/16484/9 "2000-04-22T05:24:00Z")
Hey excellent, first posts and it contains one of my favourite authors, John Varley. The Gaia trilogy is ace and actually is a trilogy! (An acknowledged rarity in SF/F). My favourite would have proably be something by Greg Egan ([http://www.netspace.net.au/~gregegan/](http://www.netspace.net.au/~gregegan/)) either ‘Permutation City’ or ‘Quarantine’ which both awed me with the depth of their ideas. No hypebole intended. ---
**Author:** ![Falcon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/49beb7/32.png) [@Falcon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Falcon)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2000, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-book-post-sorry-please-could-you-list-your-favourite-scifi-fantasy-book/16484/10 "2000-04-22T05:26:00Z")
Hoo boy. Let’s see… All of David Eddings’s series (Belgariad, Malloreon, Elenium, Tamuli) Vows and Honor Duology by Mercedes Lackey (The Oathbound and Oathbreakers) Gayle Greeno’s Ghatti series Not sure if this would count, but the detective series by Glen Cook that includes “Red Iron Nights.” Can’t remember the main character to save my life, though. Piers Anthony’s Incarnations of Immortality series Mists of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley The Darkover series, by Marion Zimmer Bradley * * * Homepage: [www.tiercel.com](http://www.tiercel.com) Occupation: Culling slow moving vermin Location: The wild blue yonder. Interests: Thermals, updrafts, downdrafts, air currents in general. (Profile by UncleBeer.) Environment? Nah. Mood lighting and ambience is what counts. - a genuine **WallyM7** sig ---
**Author:** ![Lux\_Fiat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/bc79bd/32.png) [@Lux\_Fiat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lux_Fiat)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2000, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-book-post-sorry-please-could-you-list-your-favourite-scifi-fantasy-book/16484/11 "2000-04-22T05:28:00Z")
I’d have to say my favorite books thus far have been the Ender series by Orson Scott Card (_Ender’s Game, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, Children of the Mind_). I second (or third, or whatever) the mentions of the _Wheel of Time_ and _Dark Tower_ series. Also a big fan of Zelazny’s Amber books. * * * “Are you frightened of snakes?” “Only when they dress like werewolves.” -Preacher ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2000, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-book-post-sorry-please-could-you-list-your-favourite-scifi-fantasy-book/16484/12 "2000-04-22T05:31:00Z")
_Dune_. There is no other. * * * “And so he says to me, I don’t like the cut of your jib. And I go, I says, but it’s the only jib I’ve got baby.” ---
**Author:** ![TheNerd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/858c86/32.png) [@TheNerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheNerd)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2000, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-book-post-sorry-please-could-you-list-your-favourite-scifi-fantasy-book/16484/13 "2000-04-22T05:31:00Z")
SciFi: Permutation City by Greg Egan. As someone else said above. Fantasy (sort of): Agyar by Steven Brust. Lucifer’s Hammer is by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. Everything they write together is good. ---
**Author:** ![kookalouris](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e9bcb4/32.png) [@kookalouris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kookalouris)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2000, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-book-post-sorry-please-could-you-list-your-favourite-scifi-fantasy-book/16484/14 "2000-04-21T18:08:00Z")
_The Martian Chronicles_ by Ray Bradbury Science Fiction as Norman Rockwell fantasy. ---
**Author:** ![Nen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Nen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nen)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2000, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-book-post-sorry-please-could-you-list-your-favourite-scifi-fantasy-book/16484/15 "2000-04-21T18:10:00Z")
The Death Gate Cycle series by Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman ---
**Author:** ![Sunshine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Sunshine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunshine)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2000, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-book-post-sorry-please-could-you-list-your-favourite-scifi-fantasy-book/16484/16 "2000-04-21T18:21:00Z")
Anything by Piers Anthony, also Dave Duncan (more Fantasy). Reading a new book now, called “Rhapsody” by Elizabeth Haydon, which I am enjoying immensely. ---
**Author:** ![obfusciatrist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4af34b/32.png) [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2000, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-book-post-sorry-please-could-you-list-your-favourite-scifi-fantasy-book/16484/17 "2000-04-21T18:25:00Z")
Fantasy: The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (6 books), Stephen R. Donaldson The Riftwar Saga (4 books), Raymond E. Feist Science Fiction: Little Fuzzy and Fuzzy Sapiens by H. Beam Piper. (Don’t know what but these two books have alway appealed to me on some visceral level) Also, many of my friends avoided Sheri S. Tepper because “feminist science fiction sucks.” But what they are forgetting is that almost ALL of science fiction sucks. I have read some truly atrocious feminist scifi but it doesn’t seem to be any worse than any other sub-genre. So if you have avoided the area I would recommend giving it a try and Tepper is a good place to start. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2000, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-book-post-sorry-please-could-you-list-your-favourite-scifi-fantasy-book/16484/18 "2000-04-21T18:32:00Z")
No fantasy book or series has ever rivalled the paradigm for the genre: _The Lord of the Rings_ by J. R. R. Tolkein. Science fiction at present has a real identity crisis. In the past, it was easy to write about fantastic futures with lots of races living in the galaxy, or with mankind sown all over the stars. The reason it was easy to do this was we didn’t really know for certain what was out there, and whether or not the light barrier would be a true barrier to the speed of ships. It was also easy to write about hard-core science fiction, the sort of story based on technological advance, because so many potential advances seemed right at the fingertips. Now, of course, we realize that faster-than-light travel is really a fantasy and that a solar system filled with different types of life is not awaiting us. This makes the fantastic type of science fiction just that; fantasy. An example is Star Trek; a better example is David Weber’s series on Honor Harrington. But for true, hard-core science fiction, the bar is really really high. You have lots to postulate (we are still doing amazing things), but what do you DO with it to make a story out of it? For this reason, some of the best science fiction remains the classics from the 40’s and 50’s. Of the post-1960 period, I’d go with _Ringworld_ by Larry Niven, and most anything written by C. J. Cherryh, especially _Downbelow Station_. I’d have to say _Ender’s Game_ was pretty good, too. And if you want a really poignant story, read _Flowers for Algernon_, the original short story, not the book they made later and was turned into the movie _Charlie_. ---
**Author:** ![Sunshine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Sunshine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunshine)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2000, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-book-post-sorry-please-could-you-list-your-favourite-scifi-fantasy-book/16484/19 "2000-04-21T18:39:00Z")
Did anybody ever read “Battlefield Earth”? I thought it was fantastic. Plus, the movie comes out this summer. I love to compare. * * * “It’s not death I fear so much as leaving something so beautiful as life.” ---
**Author:** ![mazirian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@mazirian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mazirian)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2000, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-book-post-sorry-please-could-you-list-your-favourite-scifi-fantasy-book/16484/20 "2000-04-21T18:40:00Z")
**SF** Alfred Bester’s _The Stars My Destination_. **Fan** Anything by Fritz Leiber * * * _For once you must try to face the facts: Mankind is kept alive by bestial acts._ [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-book-post-sorry-please-could-you-list-your-favourite-scifi-fantasy-book/16484.md?page=2)