Fenris? Oh Fennnnrisssss.
I chugging my way through David Wingrove’s most excellent Chung Kuo series. It’s up to 8 hefty novels, I believe.
Just do yourself a favour and ignore the list of characters at the front of each book-- especially the ones marked under ‘dead’
Well, this is definately fantasy rather than SF, but I
loved “Neverwhere” by Neil Gaiman. it’s kind of a modern day Alice in Wonderland. Highly Recommended
Robert Silverberg is on my list of “read anything this guy has written” authors. I particularly liked Tom O’Bedlam and The Majipoor Chronicles (a series in three parts, I believe).
1.) “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” and “The Past Through Tomorrow” ( a very large collection of short works that includes two short novels) by Robert A. Heinlein.
2.) “Wasp,” “Sentinels from Space,” “Sinister Barrier,” and “Three to Conquer” by Eric Frank Russell, a writer of Campbell’s stable who is little known today. (This is very sad, IMO, as Russell was one of the most original sci-fi authors ever.)
3.) “Childhood’s End” by Arthur C. Clarke
4.) The three volumes of the Science Fiction Hall of Fame contain many of the greatest shorter pieces of the genre, including Roger Zelazny’s short story “A Rose for Ecclesiastes” and E.M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops.”
5.) “Tau Zero,” “A Knight of Ghost and Shadows,” “The Dancer of Atlantis,” “Brain Wave,” “The Rebel Worlds,” “The Man Who Counts,” and “There Will be Time” by the recently -deceased Poul Anderson. He was my favorite science-fiction author.
6.) “The Silver Eggheads” and “Gather Darkness” by Fritz Lieber.
7.) “Ringworld” by Larry Niven
8.) The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov
9.) “The World of Tiers” by Philip Jose Farmer (Actually he wrote five books in this series, but the first one is by far and away the best, IMO, and one of the most wildly imaginative novels ever.
10.) “The Space Merchants” by Fred Pohl and the late C.M. Kornbluth
11.) “Dune” by Frank Herbert
12.) The Best of Leigh Brackett, “The Long Tommorow,” and the Ginger Star trilogy, all by Leigh Brackett
13.) “Dangerous Visions” a massive anthology edited by Harlan Ellison
14.) “S is for Space” and “R is for Rocket” by Ray Bradbury
15.) The anthologies of Hugo and Nebula stories always contain some works well worth reading
16.) “War of the Worlds” and “The Time Machine” by H.G. Wells. Oldies but goodies.
17.) “Bug Jack Barron” by Norman Spinrad
18.) “The Forever War” by Joe Haldeman
19.) “At the Mountains of Madness” and “The Shadow out of Time” by H.P. Lovecraft. Yeah, I know Eich Pi Ell is supposed to be a horror writer, but trust me on this. These works are science fiction.
20.) The Solar Queen series by Andre Norton. The four I have are “Sargasso of Space,” “Plague Ship,” “Voodoo Planet,” and “Postmarked the Stars.” I understand Norton recently wrote a fifth novel in collaboration with another writer, but I don’t know its name.
21.) They mostly wrote short stories and their work is probably out of print, but I have found that Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore, a husband-and-wife team, rarely disappoint.
John Varley’s ‘Steel Beach’ is one of my favorite novels in any genre. Even though Varley is fairly well-known in the SF community, I hardly ever come across SF fans who have read ‘Steel Beach’. If you can find a copy, please do so.
Boy, people are picking some weird works by my favorite authors. My picks would be:
Stanislav Lem: The Star Diaries, More Tales of Pirx the Pilot; The Cyberiad; Memoirs Found In A Bathtub; His Master’s Voice, One Human Minute; Imaginary Magnitude.
Phil Dick - A Scanner Darkly; Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said; The Man Who Japed; Martian Time-Slip. Note: I do not recommend the Valis books to anyone, after two people I recommended the book to had nervous breakdowns while reading them. Actually, his short story collections are much better than his novels.
Also highly recommended
Rudy Rucker: White Light; Space-Time Donuts; The Secret of Life, the “Software” series (4 books), Saucer Wisdom, The Transrealist Anthology
Robert L. Forward: Dragon’s Egg; Starquake; Rocheworld
If you’re into hard-science fiction, you must read Dragon’s Egg. If you’re out for a good laugh, read The Cyberiad. If you’re lucky enough to find it, you should read SpaceTime Donuts. If you ever find The Secret of Life, you should sell it to me, I’d pay serious of money for it.
Beat me to it…CJ Cherryh is a great read. Not much of this- “Oh, everything is peachy, then we have a problem, then everything gets fixed again.” tripe. Situations start off bad, and the characters deal in very realistic ways to the situations around them.
[hijack]I am SSOOOOO pissed at DAW books though! I just got all 4 books in the ‘Foreigner’ series from Amazon. I start reading the first book and get halfway, and the jerks had a machine error or something- it goes from page 144 to page 241, then start over again after page 287 it jumps backwards to 195 and finishes…GGGrrrr…4 books to take with me on vacation next Saturday to read on a beach, and I can’t now!!![/hijack]
AS for the OP- The first two books of ‘The Nights Dawn Trilogy’ by Peter Hamilton are great. Don’t read the third, make up your own ending. Also, I love Iain M. Banks- Start with ‘Consider Phlebas’. He has created a universe dominated by the Culture, and each book focuses on a little story from here or there- Great reads. He also writes very good fiction under the name Iain Banks (no M.).
-Tcat
LMAO! That is indeed a great risk one takes when reading VALIS. PKD was going through a rather serious bout of insanity when he wrote that book. There are parts that will make anyone feel uneasy. However, the man also had a great sense of humour, and that much is reflected, especially in the first book (the one actually entitled VALIS).
After reading that post, I must also add A Scanner Darkly to my recommendations. It’s a thoroughly entertaining book. Another one I failed to mention - one which has been snubbed by critics - is Clans of the Alphane Moon. This was one of the first PKD books I ever read (after the mandatory reading of The Man in the High Castle), and I really enjoyed it. It’s quite insane, and extremely funny.
It’s true, Zaphod, Valis is dangerous for people who aren’t ready for it. Actually, I’m kind of a fan of “Galactic Pot-Healer” but it’s pretty offbeat. But oh those short stories. Like “Autofac” or “Roog” or “Explorers We.”
OK, does anyone else find it odd that Zaphod Beeblebrox didn’t recommend the Hitchhiker Trilogy?
Oh, and I thought the Amber books were great, but there needed to be an eleventh book to tie up loose ends after the non-ending of the tenth. The first five books definitely make a good series with a decent end.
Ah, yes. I almost forgot The Galactic Pot Healer. In the same vein, there’s also Confessions of a Crap Artist, which is an entertaining read if you’re in a “WTF???” kind of mood.
I do enjoy Dick’s short stories. I also enjoyed his collection of essays and philosophical writings (the title of the book is something to that effect, though I don’t remember it exactly at the moment). Among his earlier short stories, the most influential (though by no means his best) was probably We Can Remember It for You Wholesale, which was the inspiration for the movie Total Recall.
LOL… Fair enough. I hereby wholeheartedly recommend The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy “trilogy”. I avoided mentioning it, because some sci-fi purists might have argued that these were works of comedy, rather than science fiction.
Poul Anderson’s Time Patrol
Many of the several hundred Star Trek novels are good. Federation(J. & G. Reeves-Stevens), like many others, doesn’t require any previous knowledge of Star Trek.
You’re finding one here, and I’ll agree with you. Much more than a “Heinlein homage or pastiche” which critics often dismiss it as. It DOES have a sort of “Golden Age” feel to it, though. “Golden Globe” is a follow on in the same universe, and it’s also good.
I liked Varley’s “Titan” stuff, too, although it trailed off badly at the end. The first two were great.
Funny you should say that. He’s on my list of “you shouldn’t judge authors by a couple books” list. I read “Son of Man” and “A Time of Changes” and seriously questioned the sanity of anybody who like this author. Then, after continuing to see reccomendations for him, I read “Dying Inside”. Silverberg is one of the few authors who has generally gotten better throughout his career, though I could have STRANGLED him for “Face of the Waters”, one of the worst endings ever constructed to a good novel. I liked “Hot Sky at Midnight” in addition to his more widely read stuff. I met him once, too. Nice old guy, who told me I’d gotten on his good side by complementing “Dying Inside” which is one of his personal favorites.
World building - I’m a fan of Julian May’s 9 book, 3 series Galactic Millieu Opus - “Pliocene Exile” (4 books), “Intervention” (2 books) and finally “The Millieu Trilogy” (3 books).
Glen Cook - The Black Company stuff, though I’ve lost interest in the books of the South. The first series is very good, and reach a conclusion that doesn’t require that you start the sequels. “The Silver Spike” is a standalone story that follows the first part, and I would say that either the first book or that one is the best thing Cook has done. Silver Spike was written without a sequel in mind. It helps.
UK LeGuin - “The Dispossessed” may be the best SF novel, and fits into her constructed universe. “Left Hand of Darkness” is also good.
David Brin’s “Sundiver” stuff is overrated IMO, as is Card’s “Ender” stuff (THAT may ruffle somebody’s feathers). Both authors have done better - I really liked the world Brin constructed in “Glory Season” and would like to see a followup. Card wrote an unusual little fable called “Hart’s Hope” that I may regard as his best work. Card’s “Alvin Maker” was good, though it suffers from his inability to end a series. “Ender” and “Sundiver” aren’t BAD, exactly, I just don’t think they live up to their hype.
Since we seem to just be handing out reccomendations in addition to specifically epic / world building, a couple favorite authors of mine that haven’t been mentioned:
John Brunner
Tim Powers
Be careful with Brunner, though. I think he was one of the best, but I will concede that he wrote some clinkers as well as some of the best SF ever written. Read “Shockwave Rider”, “The Sheep Look Up”, “Stand on Zanzibar”, “The Jagged Orbit”, “The Crucible of Time”. Do NOT read “Players at the Game of People” or “The Web of Everywhere”.
Bagkitty’s list of ten frequently overlooked but great science fiction works (not in any particular order, just as they occurred to me):
Sherri S. Tepper’s “Grass” – truly imaginative “world builder” book
Ursula K. LeQuin’s “The Dispossessed” – far and away her best, more challenging than “The Left Hand of Darkness”
Iain M. Banks’ Culture books (all of them) – can’t praise this series enough
Roger Zelazney’s “Lord of Light” – self contained single novel, a truly inspired “world builder”
Walter Miller Jr.'s “A Canticle for Leibowitz” – well deserves it’s reputation as a classic
E.E. “Doc” Smith’s Lensman series – okay, they’re old, they’re campy, and I love them – comic books without the pictures… 10 on the entertainment scale (even if they score in the negative figures in terms of deep and meaningful)
Frank Herbert’s “Whipping Star” and “Dosadi Experiment” – strangely enough, some people don’t like the “Dune” books, this pair might change their mind about the author
James Blish “A Case of Conscience” – dated, but still good. Also, his “Cities in Flight” series is worth trying to find
John Brunner’s “The Shockwave Rider” and “Stand on Zanzibar” – who thought that it was the sociologists who would set us free?
Piers Anthony’s “Tarot” – okay, the man has written more crap than almost anyone else, but occasionally…
I’d have to agree with you on Deepness in the Sky. I think it is best science fiction I have read since Speaker for the Dead. It was a long book, but at no point was I bored. The characters were great, the plot was great, the whole concept was great, the attention to detail was awesome, even the ending was good.
In terms of recommendations, I’d chime in here and agree with yabob on the 9 book Julian May Golden Torc/Intervention/Galactic Milleu series. I think it one of the most underappreciated works of science fiction.
I also just finished the Red/Green/Blue Mars trilogy of Kim Stanley Robinson. Good characters and incredible attention to detail. If you can stand all of his prattling on about areology (geology on Mars), then it is a good read. Each book stands nicely, except of course for all of that description of terrain and meteor strikes.
You already had tons of good recommendations, but there are three well known series I’ve been surprised not to see mentionned (in the “world building” category) :
-The torturer by Gene Wolfe (Shadow of the torturer, Claw of the conciliator, Sword of the Lictor…there are 5 of them)
-Helliconia, by Brian Aldiss (Spring,Summer,Winter)
-Earthsea, by Ursula Le Guin (Wizard at Earthsea,Tombs of Atuan, The Farthest shore)
Among the many good books which have been mentionned, my prefered are :
-Ender’s trilogy, by Orson Scott Card, the Majipoor Chronicles by Silverberg, some of Brunner’s books,…and especially “a canticle for Leibowitz”, which is amongst my preferred books.
I liked a lot the dark tales of “Night’s sorceries” by Tanith Lee, but I don’t know if the other books from her “Flatearth” serie (Night’s Master, Death’s Master, Delusion’s Master and Delirium’s Mistress) are as good.
Oh! And also a not well known but IMO excellent book “Mother’s country chronicles”. Unfortunately the author’s name (she’s a canadian writer) escapes me and I lent the book (probably not to see it again…), so I can’t check. I would be grateful if someone knows it and can give me the author’s name (the story is about a world where men’s have been mostly wiped out, and which became a matriarchy, and the main character is a kind of archeologist. Tales and children’s songs play a great part in the plot…in case it would help someone to remember it)
Just noticed that quite all of my recommendations are actually fantasy (Flatearth for instance), or about worlds where technology never appeared (Helliconia), collapsed (mother’s country chronicles), has been deliberatly eliminated (a canticle for Leibowitz), is so remotedly present that it plays no part (Majipoor) or is only accessible to very few people (I won’t give the name, it’s part of the plot).
So, if you’re into “pure” technology SF, perhaps my recommendations aren’t the best for you…
If you haven’t already read A Fire Upon the Deep (also by Verner Vinge), read it NOW. If you can find his anthology Threats and Other Promises, pick that one up, too, as he has a prequel story, set in the same universe.
I found the idea of Focus to be utterly fascinating, and utterly terrifying.
Nice to see LeGuin finally get mentioned in a sci-fi thread around here. I recommend The Lathe of Heaven, a real mind-bender.
Also, PK Dick’s Time Out of Joint and when you’re ready for a nice brain-fry A Scanner Darkly.