What is the best science fiction book, ever?

[Mr. Harley]

Burn the Heretic, burn the heretic.

MosesPresley, have you tried LeGuin? Looking at some of her choices, you might enjoy some of her books that look at future society.

[LDiCesare]

quote:
Always Coming Home by Ursula Le Guin is also extraordinary.

Is it better than The Left Hand of Darkness? I read The Left Hand of Darkness a while ago. Its very well written. The premiss is very interesting. I enjoyed it, but I was disapointed. I can't say why.

Always Coming home is extraordinaty because it is not written as a novel or a story, but as an ethnologist's work centering around a big novella. So it is ethnology-fiction. It starts with:
"The people in this book might be going to have lived a long long time from now in Northern California".
The content of the book is interesting, but the way it is written, starting by an apparently meaningless poem, then going on to immerse you in an imagined civilisation, is great. When you close the book and read the first poem again, you understand why it was there in the first place, why it was in fact very meaningful and typical, because, in the process of reading the book, you learnt how these people lived and thought.

[Kuciwalker]

I forgot about Verne so I also agree, 20k leagues is the best.

[Whaleboy]

Has anyone mentioned Brave New World?

[Kuciwalker]

Twice. IMO it sucked.

[Mr. Harley]

I agree with Kuci. If you get a chance to try him, read H. Beam Piper. Brilliant author who died right when his career was kicking off. Little Fuzzy is a mite bit too cute, but his Lord Kalvan was everything Turtledove should be - an alternate history that is REALLY alternate, not little piddling things like did Hitler win WW2, but what would happen if the Aryan migrations had gone East instead of West, ending up in the Americas - and a Paratemporal traveling human group that polices all these alternate earth's. Great reading.

He also wrote Space Viking, where the primary spaceship weapons are thermonuclear bombs. Not the little toys we have - though they used them - but things like a Hellburner that sets up a Bethe Fusion cycle on a plantary surface (1000 miles of terrain devastated) or Planetbusters, for setting up major earthquakes. Big mofo's, and all the various implications. It was quite good.

[Hueij]

Originally posted by shawnmmcc
I agree with Kuci.

You agree with him about Brave New World? If so, you've just dropped a couple of points on my poster-appreciation scale

[Ecthy]

I just ordered War of the Worlds on amazon as well as - relying on you guys - Ender's Game.

[Nostromo]

I just ordered War of the Worlds on amazon as well

I downloaded it last night

[Ecthy]

PIRATE!

[MosesPresley]

Originally posted by shawnmmcc
Burn the Heretic, burn the heretic.

MosesPresley, have you tried LeGuin? Looking at some of her choices, you might enjoy some of her books that look at future society.

I read the Earthsea trilogy umpteen years ago. All I remember is something about the power of the word. It was pretty good. I think I stopped reading her at that time, because she was in her fantasy phase and I was tiring of that kind of writing. Can you tell me which are the books about the future? I just might like those.

Since I am perceived as something of a sci-fi illiterate, I'll list a few of what I have read in no particular order.

L. Ron Hubbard, Battlefield Earth. This is one of the worst books I have ever read. The Psylons? were kind of interesting, but the plot was so hackneyed. The concepts were trite. A complete hack.

Arthur C. Clarke:
2001: A Space Odyssey- What a wonderul book. I like it slightly more than the film sometimes.
Childhood's End: This is another classic for me. The flying devils as an evolutionary dead end and their wonderful cities. I still remember this one fondly. The seance with the ouija boad sticks in my mind.

Isaac Asimov:
I Robot: I loved it. Almost all sci-fi afficiandos do too.
The Foundation trilogy: Another classic. I have to put these on my to read over list. One funny thing about this series is how everyone smokes. Definitely very 50's.

Frank Herbert:
Dune 1-6: The first book is a classic. The others paid the bills.
Destination Void: Definitely OK.

Thomas Covenant 1-4: I quit in book 5, because it got so boring. It seemed every book had some sort of plot contrivance to keep the leper from using his awesome power.

I really liked the epic battles of the first series. I also liked how he had be the nemesis of the book (I can't remember his name) by love and not violence. It was novel idea for me at the time.

Robert Asprin, Myth Adventures
It was fun light reading. I liked the plane where the greatest deal makers lived.

Roger Zelazny:
Amber 1-5: I recently read these again and I was impressed again. Economical writing style. Grand ideas and mixing genres. Very good.

Lord of Light: Another classic. The chrisitan god with his zombie horde was one of my favorite concepts.

Creatures of Light and Darkness: I liked the fugue fighting.

Tolkien:
The Lord of the Rings, Silmarillion and The Hobbit

Classics, I must have read the trilogy three or four times.

H.G. Wells:
The War of the Worlds. I read this at least six times when I was about 9 or 10 years old.

The Food of the Gods. I loved this one. Why can't they make a decent film adaption of this? The giant children are key.

Jules Verne:
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Another one that I read at least six times at age 9 or 10. Captain Nemo and his utopian undersea world is totally magic.

Gormenghast trilogy: I still can't get past chapter 3. The writing is dense and atomospheric. I can't get into it. Maybe I need to give it another chance.

John Varley, The Gaea Trilogy . I enjoyed it. Some decent light reading. I gave it to a friend of mine. He said it was total tripe. He must have right, because I can't hardly remember anything interesting from it.

H.P. Lovecraft:
I love this guy. The Call of Cthulhu, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, Dreams in the Witchhouse and The Dunwich Horror are great examples of sci-fi/horror.

Reaves & Zucker, Dragonworld. I rember liking this one. More light reading.

J.G. Ballard: Concrete Island, a collection of short stories including The JFK Assassination as a Bicycle Race, Why I want to f*** Ronald Reagan. This is a deep and interesting writer. Difficult concepts and a wicked sense of humor. Sometimes just absurd.

William S. Burroughs:
Naked Lunch, Cities of the Red Night, The Place of Dead Roads, The Western Lands. Alternately funny, insightful and just plain repulsive. Definitely a challenging read.

Kurt Vonnegut: I have read almost all of his books and some of them several times. I haven't read Timequake and Deadeye Dick. I love this guy. He is one of my favorite authors. Always human, very funny and at the time full of insights that were unfamiliar to me.

Thomas Pynchon: I have read all the novels except Mason & Dixon. I only got about 200 pages into that one before giving up. Is this guy sci-fi? I think Gravity's Rainbow fits the bill. This is a definite classic. It is a very tough read. It is full of references that I and maybe you will never get without some kind of companion. Sheer brilliance with its accompanying sister, sheer boredom. Overall a pretty good read. It definitely changed my head.

There is a host of other sci-fi/fantasy/horror wannabes that I have read, but were so awful that I can't remember their names and I can barely remember their books.

These authors are constantly recommended, but I haven't read them yet.

Phillip K. Dick, Gene Wolfe, and Larry Niven. I think I got Niven from this bulletin board.

Has anyone ever read Christov's Testament by Yuri Diakonov? It can only be found in used book stores. It's a cheesy horror classic about a Russian officer who returns from the Turkish front during the 19th century to find that the Russian church has infiltrated by Satanists.

[Nostromo]

No, its an old book, so its on Gutenberg. Downloading it is perfectly legal AFAIK. But its not as pleasant as reading a book.

[Ecthy]

No Stanislav Lem in there? no Strugazki stuff? you guys are really east-o-phobes!

[Nostromo]

Originally posted by MosesPresley

Since I am perceived as something of a sci-fi illiterate

You're obviously not a sci-fi illiterate

Lord of Light: Another classic. The chrisitan god with his zombie horde was one of my favorite concepts.

Wasn't it the book with the people who become Hindu Gods with the help of tech? I don't remember a Christian God... It sucked IMO. It was boring and uninteresting, IMO.

[Nostromo]

Originally posted by Ecthelion
No Stanislav Lem in there?

Yes, he's here. Can't you read? But, I agree with you, people's tastes here are clearly biased towards American sci-fi.