What is the best science fiction book, ever?

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
Hitchhiker's Guild to the Universe

Was this the expanded version?!

[snoopy369]

Forever War is certainly the one I think more thorough readers would mention as top ... I'm not sure I would, but it's definitely top 5...

Hyperion is probably my favorite, and in a lot of ways the best. Great writing, unique angle, amazing characters, engaging plot. Not missing anything ... and it's real SF.

OTOH, Iain Banks' Culture novels in a couple of decades have a good chance to be classed in the group you all are talking about. They're "classic-style" SF, high literature, and have both amazing characters and great plots, on top of some pretty classy socioSF concepts.

Dune might make it up there if it weren't for Chapterhouse Dune being horrid, and one of the very very few SF books I couldn't even finish ...

[Darsnan]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
Actually I think that Dune is the standard against which all science fiction should be measured. IMHO it ain't great sci-fi unless its got "wheels within wheels".

My vote goes to Herbert's "The Dosadi Experiment" because it not only encompassed the "wheels within wheels", but it also deftly wove in so many other topics into one book: political intrigue, racial (species) tensions and how they can be manipulated and enflamed to the point of calculated extermination, a love story, genetic manipulation and its consequences, plus all the little gadgets and nuances of a futuristic sci-fi setting, but included in such a way that they don't detract from the stories focus - they merely add to the story at yet a deeper level.


D

[Ben Kenobi]

But I hope you realize this is one definition of sci-fi among many others? Basically, a definition is good if it includes what you want it to include, and exludes what you want it to exclude.

As does any definition, yours just as much as the one that I gave. That's why we discuss this stuff.

Oh, and Heinlein

[JohnT]

I would easily classify 1984 as sci-fi and is so automatically the most influential novel of the genre that I kind of dismiss it as being "the obvious" #1/greatest/most influential, etc sci-fi book.

[Nostromo]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


As does any definition, yours just as much as the one that I gave. That's why we discuss this stuff.

Oh, and Heinlein

Haven't you heard? I am the truth. No need for discussion.

[Straybow]

I like OSC but haven't read the Ender series. Just lazy like that, I guess. Treason has to be the weirdest book I've ever read and enjoyed. There was another book, or maybe it was just a short story, about a singer who becomes emperor and makes the world a better place. It had interesting depths to it.

I have really enjoyed the Vorkosigan saga.

/me rumages thru boxes

Can't find it, what was it called... World of A-Null or something... Anyway, I enjoyed the intriguing concepts. But I guess it wouldn't be an all-time best.

/me thinks Amazon search can't find its own arse with both hands...

I think Dune was fascinating for its breadth. Because I liked the retro movie (yeah, poke fun at me), the Dune II computer game, and even the SciFi miniseries (yeah, yeah) I'll give Dune my vote.

[Verto]

Originally posted by JohnT
I would easily classify 1984 as sci-fi and is so automatically the most influential novel of the genre that I kind of dismiss it as being "the obvious" #1/greatest/most influential, etc sci-fi book.

That's odd; I never considered 1984 science fiction, nor having any influence on the science fiction genre; that would go to Jules Verne or H.G. Wells, in my opinion. The technology was a mere backdrop, used as a means to an end; the moral that George Orwell was trying to express was the primary purpose of the book; the technology and "sci-fi" aspects of the book received little or no explanation, other than "this is part of Big Brother".

[Odin]

I though the Mars trilogy was very good, The economic system that gets put into place in Blue Mars got me thinking that Socialism doesn't necissarily mean governemnt control of business and big government. In the book the martian government is highly decentralized (except for the supreme and enviromental courts) with lots of local autonomy, and the economy is mostly free enterprise, but all businesses are co-ops. The super-corporations that rear thier ugly head in the first 2 books if what I am afraid is realing going to happen to the 3rd world if the IMF keeps forcing Neo-Liberal policies on it.

[LDiCesare]

I'd say Solaris or His Master's Voice by Lem, or Dragon's Egg by Robert Forward. Always Coming Home by Ursula Le Guin is also extraordinary.

[SpencerH]

Frankenstein.

[Mr. Harley]

David Brin - Startide Rising. Best Aliens ever. The Tandu are just - well - alien.

Vernor Vinge - A Fire Upon the Deep. He doesn't make all happy - deus ex machina - endings. A major character does die, and you feel his joyous triumph of "I am me" in the end. Very well done.

Robert Heinlein - Starship Troopers. The movie was an abomination.

If anyone wants to read one of the founders of space opera, find some old copies of E.E. Doc Smith's Skylark and Lensmen series. Read them, and then look at the copyrights. Star Wars is a great-great-grandchild.

Simak's Way Station won a Hugo, and was a very gentle, sidewise looking book that was very different than the typical fast-paced adventure of it's day. I will definitely share it with my little girl.

An honorable mention to Keith Laumer - The Last Command (1966). It too was written about Vietnam, in it's own way, and all the other wars that preceded it. It brought tears to my eyes the first time I read it, and it still chokes me up. If you really believe in the soldiers, and how our society treats our veterans - go find it and read it. You can Google it to find some of the collections it has been published in.

[molly bloom]

J. G. Ballard: High Rise

Ursula K Le Guin: The Dispossessed

Samuel R Delany: The Einstein Intersection

Philip K Dick: Ubik

Maureen McHugh: China Mountain Zhang


Some of Asimov's ideas are good, but his prose is pedestrian.

Herbert occasionally veers towards the laconic, but there's usually some bombastic soliloquies to make up for it. Although his whole idea is still awe-inspiring.

[Mr. Harley]

Molly - you must by a true afficianado. The Einstein Intersection came out before you were born, hell I was too young to read it when it came out - I was more at The Hobbit and Farmer in the Sky stage. I haven't heard of Ubik in years - I have it but never got around to reading it, I'm not paticularly fond of Philip K. Dick (I initially wrote just his last name and then proof read it, I really am hetero ).

[Nostromo]

I haven't heard of Ubik in years - I have it but never got around to reading it, I'm not paticularly fond of Philip K. Dick (I initially wrote just his last name and then proof read it, I really am hetero ).

I read Ubik, Blade Runner (yes, the post movie edition) and The Man in the High Castle. I don't remember Ubik very well. His books have great potential, but he always ruins them somehow, or tarnish them. For example, The Man in the High Castle has a great premiss: lets imagine what would have happened if the allies had lost the war. But he ruins it, somehow. First of all, I was turned off by all that crap about the I ching. And am I the only one who thinks the movie Blade Runner was better than the book? I think Dick ruined it with all that crap about Mercerism. Maybe I'm biased because I saw the movie before I read the book. Dick was fond of pseudoscience and I hate it when he puts it in his books.