Top 3 science fiction novels you've read

[Supergamera]

Red/Green/Blue Mars - brought me back in "Hard" Sci-fi after a long time away
Neuromancer/Count Zero/Mona Lisa Overdrive - my gateway into cyberpunk.
Diaspora (Greg Egan) - probably not everyone's favorite, but one of the few books I've read multiple times, and the best transhuman book I've read.

The alternates:
Niven's Known Space books - can't limit it to one book, though, and the quality does vary. Great setting.
Diamond Age - this could easily replace the Gibson books on the list.
Culture series - still reading this, but pretty impressed so far.

Does alternate history count as sci-fi? Difference Engine, Man in the High Castle, and Guns of the South are all great.

 

[EDG]

Diaspora (Greg Egan) - probably not everyone's favorite, but one of the few books I've read multiple times, and the best transhuman book I've read.

That book blew my mind (it's probably #4 on my list). Especially the part where he's describing living in a six-dimensional universe.

 

[Ishvar]

Ringworld (Larry Niven)
Bug Jack Barron (Norman Spinrad)
Starship Troopers (Robert Heinlen)

 

[grymlocke]

Would the John Carter books by Edgar Rice Burroughs be considered Scifi?

sure..I read them too (still think the first three 'john cater of mars, princess of mars, warlord of mars) would make great flix.

don't forget Burroughs' Carson of venus series.

 

[GhostWolf69]

Iain M Banks - 'Player of Games'
Philip K Dick - 'A Scanner Darkly'
M. John Harrison - 'Light'

/wolf

 

[grymlocke]

Dune - Frank Herbert
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - Phillip K Dick
Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams (although the original radio series was better).

Of course, this may not include A Clockwork Orange, Brave New World and 1984, but then I am drifting so far into Paranoia territory, I'd better stop....

Oh, and I did like the Red Dwarf novel too, and The Algebraist wasn't bad....

you made it through Dune? I couldn't get past the chaper of him putting his hand in the box, it was sooooo slow (this from a guy that read lord of the rings 20 times since '77)

now I wonder what the improbability drive can do in traveller...d@@n you, now I can't stop thinking about it :shock: Or how to write up the red dwarf.... :roll:

 

[EDG]

The Algebraist wasn't bad....

This one would probably be #5 on my list... I loved that book.

 

[Garuda]

1. Dune
2. Dune (the rest of the series, except maybe Chapter House which was slow)
3. Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

 

[TrippyHippy]

you made it through Dune? I couldn't get past the chaper of him putting his hand in the box, it was sooooo slow (this from a guy that read lord of the rings 20 times since '77)

now I wonder what the improbability drive can do in traveller...d@@n you, now I can't stop thinking about it :shock: Or how to write up the red dwarf.... :roll:

Dune was awesome to read - and it builds well as a narrative. You shouldn't have stopped reading.

Hitch-hikers, if done well, could be done as a Traveller setting, I think. Red Dwarf, would be pretty easy I think - just focus on Citizens and Drifters in chargen, and you'll be about there.

 

[Gentleman John]

In no particular order:

Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov

Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon

Bill the Galactic Hero by Harry Harrison

Which probably explains some of my old Traveller campaigns.

 

[Garrand]

Another vote for Dune. Simply fantastic book! The later books were so-so, but I did love Dune Messiah and Children of Dune.

Mine would be:

1. Dune
2. Ringworld (because no one mentioned it specifically)
3. Canticle for Liebowitz

Damon.

 

[MJD]

Space Viking (H Beam Piper)
Redliners (David Drake)
Standing Alone (me...)

 

[rust]

The Word for World is Forest (Ursula Le Guin)
The City and the Stars (Arthur C. Clarke)
The Uplift War (David Brin)

 

[shadowcat48li]

David Weber: On Basilisk Station... first of the Honor Harrington series, an excellent read.

Spider Robinson: Callahans Crosstime Saloon... probably a bit of debate on if this series is SF, but one of my all time favorites.

Robert Heinlein: Starship Troopers, one of the first SF books I ever read, its really too bad the movie was such an insult to the book.

 

[Yogah of Yag]

"Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?", P.K. Dick
"The City and the Stars," A.C. Clarke
"A Princess of Mars," E.R. Burroughs


The Word for World is Forest (Ursula Le Guin) ???
Hm. I'll have to look into that one.
Welt and Wald. Surely that is a coincidence!

 

[hdrider67]

I have to do this as series of books.

Books 1-3 of the Honor Harrington series by David Weber
The Reaches series by David Drake

A tie for third place between Hammer's Slammers (Drake) and In Fury Born (Weber).

I'm planning on running my campaign in a semi-OTU that has elements of Slammers and Harrington with a little Wasp-style combat suits thrown in. Now if only HG comes out soon so I can scale up my ships...

 

[rust]

The Word for World is Forest (Ursula Le Guin) ???
Hm. I'll have to look into that one.
Welt and Wald. Surely that is a coincidence!

It is an excellent book about what can go wrong when a somewhat
unscrupulous spacefaring society meets and exploits a "primitive"
society and their world.
You could take a look at the book here, but this would be a spoiler:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Word_for_World_is_Forest
And, yes, the German title reads and sounds even better:
"Das Wort für Welt ist Wald".

 

[TrippyHippy]

Robert Heinlein: Starship Troopers, one of the first SF books I ever read, its really too bad the movie was such an insult to the book.

I actually thought the movie was brilliant because it was an insult to the book. Prescient too, if you think about all that happened post-9/11 and the Iraqi situation.

Heinlein fans normally hate me for saying this, but like Stanley Kubrick did for Clockwork Orange, I actually think Verhoeven enhanced the story by turning it into a bitingly relevent satire.

 

[Klaus Kipling]

Heinlein fans normally hate me for saying this, but like Stanley Kubrick did for Clockwork Orange, I actually think Verhoeven enhanced the story by turning it into a bitingly relevent satire.

Yup, that's the difference between a film and a book. They are of the time they are made in.

 

[EDG]

I actually think Verhoeven enhanced the story by turning it into a bitingly relevent satire.

Satire? I thought it was a full-on comedy - it was so cheeseball and ridiculous and over the top I couldn't even HOPE to take it seriously. I mean come on... Darth Doogie, Beverley Hills 90210 in space, Plasma-farting bugs, the body hitting the windshield after the spaceship blows up, "why's it gone dark?" before the asteroid hits, "at least I got *gasp* to do you! *dies*", feeding cows to the bugs in propaganda films, "DO YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE?".

It's pure comedy gold! (and yes, I'm sure Heinlein is spinning in his grave, but I hadn't read the original book, and I doubt it's anywhere near as fun as the movie was).