[rodandy12]

I'm trying to read the top Sci-fi books and I am well along in the quest. When one does a web search, there are a number of lists of "Top 100" Sci-fi books. Some include Fantasy, but after the top ten or so, they frequently list the same books in the same order.

As far as I can tell, Sci-fi and Fantasy differ in that Fantasy involves magic. I went through a Fantasy phase a number of years ago so I'm not interested in Fantasy this time around.

I'd like your opinion of, say, the top five Sci-fi books you have read.

Thanks in advance.

[Synnen]

Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card (and the rest of those books, sans "Xenocide")
Tuff Voyaging, by George R. R. Martin
The "Otherland" books by Tad Williams
Childhood's End--I THINK this is by Arthur Clarke, but not sure on that---I read it a while back.
"the Lathe of Heaven" by Ursula LeGuin has always been a favorite of mine as well.

[vingogly]

Here is a good top 100 list. Although I'd disagree with some of the choices, it's a good starting point. It's missing some very significant figures: for example, Olaf Stapledon and Cordwainer Smith in the older category, China Mieville and John Wright in the newer. But no top 100 list will be perfect.

There's no hard & fast dividing line between fantasy and science fiction. There's fantasy that doesn't involve magic, and science fiction that does. In the 1960s and 1970s, there was a burst of SF works that focused on psychology, sociology, and anthropology. Ursula LeGuin's works would be an example of this. Recently, there's been a rebirth of "hard" science fiction. There have always been a lot of twists & turns & reinventings in the genre.

I've been reading SF since circa 1953, so it's virtually impossible for me to give my top five. But if you twist my arm, here's a stab at it (well, I couldn't get it under eight, eleven if you count all volumes by Wolfe separately): Gene Wolfe's four-volume "Urth of the New Sun" series; William Gibson's "Neuromancer"; Stanislaw Lem's "Solaris"; Philip K. D's (the censoring software won't let me spell out his last name, see the above website for his full name) "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch"; Ursula LeGuin's "The Left Hand of Darkness"; J. G. Ballard's "The Crystal World"; China Mieville's "Perdido Street Station", John Crowley's "Engine Summer". Anything written by these authors is worth reading; most are not what you'd call "hard" SF. I choose them because of either the quality of their writing and ideas, or because of the influence of their work on the genre. If I had to choose volumes to take to a desert island, these would be it.

[HistorianChick]

Thank you for bringing up this genre of books. I've always wanted to read at least one Science Fiction book, but I am completely clueless as to which one to pick up.

Actually, I'm rather confused as to the whole "what is science fiction?" question, too!

If you could recommend one, rodandy12, from your list, what would it be?

[rodandy12]

Wow. Tough question. Depends a great deal on who you are. There are a great number of sub-genres. I'll give you a few.

For classic Sci-fi the names are Azimov, Heinlein and Clark. Azimov wrote the Foundation trilogy in the late '40s/early '50s and added to it in the '80s. Heinlein wrote the '60s cult classic "Stranger in a Strange Land", "Starship Troopers" (don't think about the movie... it had almost no relationship to the book) and my personal favorite "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress."

Another genre is "cataclysmic world destruction." Post WWII saw many of these and most people attribute the rise of nuclear weapons with the creation of this genre. In my opinion, the best of the bunch is "Earth Abides", but I'm sure others would have different opinions. A quicker read is "Day of the Triffids."

Some from the Hard Science genre are Asimov's "The Gods Themselves", Pohl's "Gateway" and maybe "Ringworld", but you could also put it into the next category. (These books are most appealing to those with some background in physics, but they are very good stories if you know nothing about it.)

Tongue in cheek Sci-fi would be anything by Douglas Adams or something like "Cat's Cradle" by Vonnegut.

Maybe the most fun genre is "interesting aliens." Niven wrote Ringworld and he does some of the best non-human species in all of Sci-fi. To get the feel with a short read that ought to be considered the prequel to Ringworld, try "The Protector." Another favorite is "A Fire Upon the Deep", but it is much longer.

Then there is time travel. Any number of these, but a good contemporary book is "The Time Traveler's Wife." It is a good read whether you like Sci-fi or not.

Yet another is what I call fractured religion for lack of a better title. Stories about races or non-human lifeforms with radically different belief systems or earth-based religions under stressful circumstances. My favorite is "A Canticle for Lebowitz."

The newest genre is Cyberpunk. "Neuromancer" and "Snowcrash" are the best of these. Think of this genre as hackers imagining what computers and networks will be like in 50-100 years.

There are probably others. Often, an author takes what would be a regular situation and changes something fundamental about it. The idea is to tell a story about individuals reacting to what might seem an impossible situation. PKD, as mentioned by vingogly above, wrote a book about WWII ending with America losing... "The Man in the High Castle" and it is also a classic, although I personally don't enjoy PKD as much as others seem to.

I guess you are realizing that I can't do this easily. If pressed, I suppose I'd have to go with "Dune." It is a great story about a complex set of interlocking groups of humans on a tough world. It is almost always in the top five on all the Sci-fi lists.

[HistorianChick]

Ooo... Time Traveler's Wife. I read that and liked it.

I enjoy time travel stories - movies, books, etc.

Dune, huh? May try that one. Thanks a bunch! :)

[Synnen]

Word of warning about Dune---if you REALLY like the first book, stop after the second book.

After that it gets... pedantic.

Another set of books I'd recommend, but always forget falls into sci-fi is the Valentine books by E. E. Knight. Post-apocalypse type books, with a good plot and characters, makes for an interesting read.

I primarily read fantasy more than sci-fi---but both genres overlap so much that I've read several of rodandy's recommendations, and have added the others to my list to get :)

[rodandy12]

Absolutely agree about Dune. Other series aren't so bad. Examples: The Ender Wiggin Saga, Annals of the Hechee (sp?), The Foundation series, The Ringworld series etc.

[vingogly]

Heinlein wrote... my personal favorite "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress."

This has been optioned for a movie, I think.

Another genre is "cataclysmic world destruction."

J.G. Ballard's earlier books like the one I mentioned are examples of this.

Tongue in cheek Sci-fi would be anything by Douglas Adams or something like "Cat's Cradle" by Vonnegut.

A real classic in this subgenre is "The Cyberiad", by Stanislaw Lem.

Maybe the most fun genre is "interesting aliens." Niven wrote Ringworld and he does some of the best non-human species in all of Sci-fi.

"The Mote in God's Eye" by Niven & Pournelle is worth a read. There's also the subgenre of incomprehensible aliens - see Lem & many others.

Yet another is what I call fractured religion for lack of a better title. Stories about races or non-human lifeforms with radically different belief systems or earth-based religions under stressful circumstances. My favorite is "A Canticle for Lebowitz."

If you like this sort of thing, I recommend "The Sparrow" by Mary Doria Russell. Also optioned for a movie, but not much progress in that direction - Russell says: "It's not a movie until the cinematographer is on the set eating a breakfast burrito."

The newest genre is Cyberpunk. "Neuromancer" and "Snowcrash" are the best of these.

And verily, Cyberpunk begat Steampunk which is probably the very newest subgenre... basically, Cyberpunk sensibility set in a Victorian alternate-universe... K.W. Jeter coined the term, Gibson & Sterling's "Difference Engine" and China Mieville's works would be examples of Steampunk (though Mieville inhabits a very strange place indeed, where Steampunk meets Marxism and Lovecraftian horror at the border of Fantasy).

PKD, as mentioned by vingogly above, wrote a book about WWII ending with America losing... "The Man in the High Castle" and it is also a classic, although I personally don't enjoy PKD as much as others seem to.

Also optioned for a movie. PKD is someone to be reckoned with - can't say I enjoy him that much but he has had a huge influence on the genre.

I guess you are realizing that I can't do this easily. If pressed, I suppose I'd have to go with "Dune."

There's no way I could pick just one. ;)

Vasily

[aokai]

I don't read much science fiction, but I would have to my top four are...

The moon is a harsh mistress by Robert Heinlein
The Handmaids Tale by Margret Atwood
1984 by George Orwell
Battlefield earth by L. Ron Hubbard

[vingogly]

HistorianChick agrees: Great answer! (Naperville, Illionis? I worked at Naper Settlement for two years as a Program Facilitator! Wow! Small world!)

Yeah, I've lived here in Naperville since January 1988... seen the town go from about 50K people to nearly 130K. Funny thing though - I've never been to Naper Settlement! :)

I moved here from North Carolina, and about this time of year I wish I were back where the weather's milder...

Vasily

[KBC]

Yeah, I've lived here in Naperville since January 1988 ... seen the town go from about 50K people to nearly 130K. Funny thing though - I've never been to Naper Settlement! :)

I moved here from North Carolina, and about this time of year I wish I were back where the weather's milder...

Vasily

I also lived in Naperville(83-85)It was booming then!

Back to the OP,

Piers Anthony wrote a series-Bio OF A Space Tyrant
Stephen R. Donaldson-Into The Gap series
John Varley-The Golden Globe
Piers Anthony and Robert Fuentes-Dead Morn
David Gemmell has a multi series from-Legend through the Rigante and is of a war like race similar to the ancient Romans/Greeks/Turks/Highlanders etc.

Just a few I would recommend anyway,

Ken

[vingogly]

Another couple of works I'd add to the best recent SF list (certainly contenders for a top 100 list): John Wright's "The Golden Age" trilogy (great portrayal of what the human race might be like say, 10000 years from now - KBC's avatar made me think of it), Alistair Reynolds' "Revelation Space" trilogy (great trilogy from the British hard SF renaissance of recent years).

Vasily

[rodandy12]

I was sort'a hoping that you guys would suggest that the ones I had already read were pretty much the best and I could stop learning about new great Sci-fi works. I have been through about 60% of the list vingogly suggested (largely over the last year) and I continue to be amazed at the ability authors I've never heard of have of grabbing me on any number of levels.

Several of the books suggested by KBC are by authors principally recognized as Fantasy authors, but after reading the Amazon commentary on their work, it is clear that some of those writers cross genres like I cross my fingers. I was turned off by Donaldson because of his intense negativity in the second book of his Thomas Covenant series. I think it was "The Illearth War." That was about 15 (maybe 20) years ago and I haven't been interested in Fantasy, since. (Well, I read The Wizard of Earhtsea series... and the Nine Princes in Amber series... and George RR Martin.)

Anyway, thanks all, for the input. I have some fun work ahead of me.

By the way, has anyone read the REAL classics of Sci-fi... Frankenstein, War of the Worlds, 20K Leagues Under the Sea, etc. I'm currently reading 20K and it is tough. I have a problem with critiquing the science which is asinine. Maybe it's a personal problem.

[Synnen]

I've read a LOT of the classic Sci Fi--back when I was still in grade school and middle school. 20K gripped me--probably because I didn't know as much about the science. Still an amazing book when you remember how much of the science in that fiction actually wasn't around at the time it was written.

I didn't like Frankenstein, but I continue to marvel at HP Lovecraft, though his works are more technically horror.

Never read WotW, but it is on my list.

I basically read anything I can get my hands on, most of the time. If I don't pace myself, a 500 page book takes about a day for me to read.

[rodandy12]

I find it interesting how one's view of specific pieces of literature changes over time. The biggest change seems to have been pre-25ish and post-25ish. Somehow my views changed quite a bit over that mid-20s period. I find it interesting to remember and re-read a book I read and thought well of years ago. Sometimes the good parts are very different the second time around.

A Sci-fi book called "Dragon's Egg" is a good example. I was very much taken by the story. A neutron star passes near our solar system and we send out an expedition which studies it for some period. A race of being reaches sentience and evolves past us on the surface of the star in the same amount of time. That's what I remember. I picked it up a couple of weeks ago and started reading it again. The writing style seemed trite... certainly not what I remembered.

[vingogly]

By the way, has anyone read the REAL classics of Sci-fi...Frankenstein, War of the Worlds, 20K Leagues Under the Sea, etc.? I'm currently reading 20K and it is tough. I have a problem with critiquing the science which is asinine. Maybe it's a personal problem.

In reading some of this older stuff, you have to put your modern mindset out of the way and read it with a certain naïveté... trying to put yourself into the mindset of someone with a 19th century/early 20th century understanding of the world. A willful suspension of disbelief.

Here's an interesting essay on the classics of science fiction. An extremely influential early 20th-century author who's often overlooked on such lists but who is a must-read In my opinion for anyone who's seriously interested in the history of SF is Olaf Stapledon, especially Sirius, Odd John, Last and First Men. He's a bit later than your other "classics" but was a contemporary of H. G. Wells.

[rodandy12]

Thanks, vingogly.

I enjoyed the essay on the classics, but I wasn't trying to find classics. I was interested in the highest rated books and I don't think the two are necessarily the same thing. I came up with 7 lists on the net, but what I found was that the owner of the list had opinions about the first 10-15, but after that, most lists looked the same. In fact, when I copied them into an excel file and compared columns, after abound 20, several of them were the same. I wonder if Harris saw the same thing?

I've read nothing by Stapledon so far. Sounds like I need to add a couple.

[DarrenB]

Ender's Game is great, but I much prefer PastWatch- the Redemption of Christopher Columbus by Orson Scott Card.

That and anything by PKD top my list!

[theguywithnolife]

You guys are forgetting the most obvious one!

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