Top Ten SF Must-Reads...

I concur with many of the previous speakers… but i racked my brains for a bit and came up with a list, none of which (I think) have been mentioned yet, all of which (I think) would repay reading:-

Olaf Stapledon’s Star Maker. One of the first things that got me out of the Asimov/Clarke/“Doc” Smith rut, and an exercise in Thinking Big. About as big as you can get, in fact.

Greg Egan’s Permutation City, for cutting-edge computers/mathematical speculation.

SF needn’t be serious. Candidates for best rampantly silly SF novel include Robert Sheckley’s Dimension of Miracles and John Sladek’s The Reproductive System.

Nobody’s yet mentioned Iain (M.) Banks? Use of Weapons is my favourite of the Culture novels.

John Wyndham’s The Day of the Triffids effectively defines the peculiarly (mostly) British sub-genre called the “cosy catastrophe”. And it’s a fun book.

More modern British authors include Jeff Noon (Vurt) and Geoff Ryman(The Child Garden).

Less modern British authors include Brian Aldiss (short story collection The Saliva Tree is my personal favourite) and J. G. Ballard (again, head for the short story collection Vermilion Sands).

So that’s a list from me. Some of them an acquired taste, and mostly British - not that I have anything against American SF, it’s just that other people have already recommended most of my American favourites.

I agree in part. Rendezvous with Rama is spectacular and riveting. The sequels are crap in direct proportion to their temporal distance from the original. This was a book that truly should have been left alone.

2001, IMHO, is too tied to the movie to stand well alone. Don’t get me wrong: I love the book and I love the movie, but I think you need both to fully “get it.” If you want to cover Clarke’s generation-spanning penchant for apocalyptic tales, his disavowed Childhood’s End is a much better book. However, the classic First and Last Men by Olaf Stapledon did it first and on a much grander scale than Clarke ever attempted. It’s not that good a read, but it’s an important work.

Anyone who knows anything about my SN can already take a (not so wild) guess at who my favorite author is. I’m glad that Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card has been listed among the top Sci-Fi novels several times already in this thread.

May I also suggest Pastwatch: The redemption of Christopher Columbus and The Worthing Saga, both by Card, and both excellent.

Hyperion, also mentioned earlier, by Dan Simmons, is another wonderful book. But it reads very very slowly.

If SF means Speculative Fiction, I’d also recommend Wizard’s First Rule by Terry Goodkind, and Runelords by David Farland.

(while desperately trying not to hijack this thread) I’d like to take a mini-poll. I’m finishing up my current book within the next day or two and I’m going to start on either I, Robot or Nightfall, both by Asimov. Your choice?

Of the things mentioned so far on this thread that I’ve read, they’re all good choices. I won’t bother to tell you which I don’t know well enough to comment on.

I’d like to add, for the perfect intro to the subgenre of military SF, read “Starship Troopers” by Heinlein. This will also prepare you to participate in the revilement of the movie version.

I’d like to add my particular endorsement of the Asimov robot stories and robot detective novels.

I’d like to recommend a Asimov-edited anthology called “The Super Hugos”. It is a collection of the Hugo-award-winning short stories judged best from among all winners past.

I’d also like to recommend some particular short stories, since they are one of the hearts of SF (you can have multiple hearts in this genre).
“The Last Question” and “Nightfall” by Asimov.
“The Nine Billion Names of God” by Clarke.
“To Serve Man” by Damon Knight.

I should be able to think of more, but they’re not coming to me right now.

Definitely I, Robot, if you’ve never read it before. Every SF fan must know the three laws by heart, but you can’t really appreciate everything they imply until you’ve read the stories.

Before you read the novel version of Nightfall, find and read the original short story it was built from. It was once voted the best SF story of all time (though Asimov placed it third in his list of favorites from his own writing).

Please excuse me for asking this, as it might be a hijack, but I was wondering… (This DOES have something to do with this thread, since I, too, am trying to cover all the classics of the genre.)

T’other day I picked up (at the lye-berry) a rather weighty book titled The Great Book of Amber. It’s got all ten books of the chronicles collected together.

So I’m looking for opinions, also. Is this big monster worth it? The cover procalims that it IS, in fact a classic of the genre, but I trust y’all’s opinions reather than cover copy.

*and a note about Biggirl’s suggestion of Eon. IMHO, this DEFINITELY falls under what Fenris calls “hard” SF. I never learned quantum theory so there were parts of that book that made my head hurt. But don’t let that scare you - do like I did: When you get to a section that tries to explain the physics of a singularity, just smile and nod, say “uh-huh”, and move on. :slight_smile:

David Drake is among my favorite authors. Hammer’s Slammers is a must-read if you have interest at all in this genre.

Rendezvous with Rama is a wonderful book. For the love of God, don’t bother with the sequels, they serve only to ruin the wonderful mystery of the original.

Starship troopers is an excellent book. A tad hard to find these days, but certainly worth it. In fact, I’d recommend anything by Heinlein.

Orson Scott Card is one of my favorite writers. Ender’s Game is great, and one of his less well known works, Treason, is also worthwhile. It’s a bit unusual and closer to fantasy in some respects, but an enjoyable read nonetheless.

Ben - thanks. The reason I included #9 & #10 on my is because my list seemed a bit long in the tooth, and these two books rae (IMHO, of course) the best Science Fiction written in the past twenty years. More importantly, both the New Sun and Hyperion, with their dense prose, multilayered stories and literary allusions, are probably the best examples you can thrust in the face of philistines who claim that SF can’t be “Literature”. In addition, Hyperion is probably the most inclusive Science Fiction ever written, covering virtually every subgenre I can think of - from hard SF to soft, cyberpunk to time travel, space opera, military fiction and religion. You really should check it out.

Tygr - Zelazny was one of the greatest of the 1960’s class of SF creators, and in my opinion the best actual writer. While Clarke & co. may have been more thorough and educated, Zelazny could actually write dialogue, as well as complex plots and appealling characters. He also had a bit of a wild edge to his imagination - you could never quite tell what he would come up with next. As you can tell, he’s one of my favorites.

RZ started writing in the early 60’s, and while dome say he peaked by the end of the decade, I also love his stuff from the seventies (his later stuff is, unfortunately, inferior). He writes with a sharp, tight, cynical style, often reminiscent of 1940s detective writes. He worked equally well in Science Fiction and Fantasy, novels and short stories, usually caring less about the science and more about building an interesting world and an exiting story. This is not to say theat he didn’t have a more pensive, philosophical side - he did, and it often showed up in the least expected palces.

The Amber series is his greatest work of Fantasy - at least, the first series is; the second one is decidedly inferior, even unnecessary. It’s very imaginative, original, and written in a style I’ve never seen anywhere else - Lord of the Rings as written by Raymond Chandler.

My advice - read it.

I don’t think these were listed yet:

The Mote In God’s Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. This book has one of the coolest alien races I’ve ever heard of. They’re not evil, they’re not good. They just ARE ,with their own agenda driven by their alien biology and culture.

For that matter, practically anything written by LN and JP (Footfall, for example) is gonna be a great read.

Also, check out Armor, by John Steakly. I actually think this book is superior to Starship Troopers, and gives Ender’s Game a run for its money.

For fun war adventure (Lots of explosions, bad puns, cool fight scenes), try and dig up the Sten series, by Alan Cole and Chris Bunch.

Finally, I’d recommend the Well Of Souls series, by Jack Chaulker.

I wouldn’t. The original 5 books, yes: they’re wonderful stuff, but the next trilogy is atrocious. (Mavra, one of the toughest female characters in SF goes insane because she didn’t know that women were treated inequitably in the past? :rolleyes:) And the two-book series that followed is so bad I’ve never finished it.

Fenris

Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

I’d like to add anything written by Octavia E. Butler.

Boy, you can tell the relative ages of people here by the books that got left out.

It’s hard to choose only ten, but here’s a shot:

  1. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress By Robert Heinlein. I’ll take it over the “classic” Stranger in a Strange Land" anyday, or over "Starship Troopers (which wasn’t at all hard to get, the last time I looked).

  2. The Foundation Trilogy by Asimov. Ignore the later additions. Although there were some worthwhile additions, the good Doctor got verbose in his later years, and I dn’t thin anyone wanted to tell him.

  3. Rendezvous with Rama have to agree with people on this board. There are other good novels by Carke, but I’m disappointed in “Childhood’s End”, which as for years listed as his Great Novel. I agree in striking the “Rama” collaborations with Gentry Lee from the list.

  4. The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volumes I, IIA, and IIB Nowhere else can you find such a perfect collection of short science fiction stories and novellas. Volumes III and IV reprint award winners from a number ofconsecutive years, and for my money aren’t up to thelevel of the first three. The ground-breakin anthology Adventures in Time and Space comes in a close second.

  5. Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement. Lots of good Clement out there (but VERY hard to get hold of, unfortunately), but my choice for this list had to be either this one or Needle.

  6. The Best of Stanley G. Weinbaum. The entire Balantine/Del Rey “The Best of…” series is well worth hunting out.AFAIK, the only volume currently in print is The Best of Lester Del Rey. But the Stanley G. Weinbaum volume is the one that started the series, and it honors the unfortunately short career of the now largely forgotten Stanley G. Weinbaum. “A Martian Odyssey” i definitely a classic. I didn’t realize until I read this anthology that it had a sequel.

  7. Dune by Frank Herbert. No matter what you say about the sequels or the movie versions, the original is a classic.

  8. The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester. The first Hugo award winner,bursting with ideas and clever treatments. How do you commit a crime in a society where telepathy is common? I know someone on the SDMB doesn’t like this one, but I love it, and it certanly has the qualifications for a classic. Bester’s The Stars my Destination is another top contender.

  9. ** Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea** by Jules Verne. Read the Antated version with notes by Walter James Miller, or his own translation of it if you can. Until the 1960s, the translators were obscene in their willingness to carve up Verne’s books and the translations were ofen inferior. Any of a number of Verne’s works could stand in here – he wrote about 80 of them, and almost all have been translated into English – but try to find them! Verne has been abused, and too often dismissed as juvenile. But search out and read his books again.

  10. Hyperion by Dan Simmons. Impressive. The series slowly declined, but not by very much, and you can’t really just read the first one without rading the other three in the series.
    Ten books doesn’t leave you room for a lot of others. I’d like to include Cordwainer Smith, and L. Sprague de Camp Fredric Brown and Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle and Murray Leinster and Harry Harrison and Frederick Pohl and H.G. wells others too numerous to mention.

Damn, no one mentioned “1984”. I figured a lot of people regarded it as an all time classic…

<brief hijack>
Let me invite folks that are enjoying Marvel’s excellent thread, to also take a look at this similar thread. I could use your (collective) help.
</brief hijack>
Thanks!

Fenris

I’m glad people mentioned the short story and anthologies of them. This is an important point.

(The last line of “The Nine Billion Names of God” is flawed IMHO.)

A classic certainly. I for one don’t regard it as SF. I don’t want to get flamed here, but it’s too significant a work of literature to be constrained by a genre. Others I would put in this category are Frankenstein and Dracula.

anything he has written is pretty dang good.

this takes me back, I used to be a fiend but haven’t read any new SF since 1985 when I left the States.

I’m a big Orwell fan, but I wouldn’t consider 1984 science fiction. There’s no outlandishly scientific concotions or inventions. Yeah its a tale of the future, but that doesn’t, IMHO, make it science fiction.

I mostly agree with most of the titles listed here, although I see an awful lot of turkeys on these lists too. But I am concerned by the lack of cyberpunk and Hard Science books.

I will add a nod to Hard Science: Robert L. Forward’s books typify the Hard Science genre. In particular, Dragon’s Egg and Starquake should be in everyone’s library.

As far as Cyberpunk, forget Gibson, he was a relative latecomer. Any SF list must include the true father of the Cyberpunk Genre, Rudy Rucker. In particular, his novels White Light and Spacetime Donuts defined the genre, back before Gibson when nobody was paying attention. Most of the attention to Rucker’s works go to the Software trilogy, but these mass trade books are (IMHO) inferior to other works like “The Meaning of Life” or “Saucer Wisdom.”