OT: Favorite Science Fiction Author(s) and books

[Hobbesarable]

What is your favorite science fiction (SF) author?

Isaac Asimov

Of his books, what would you recommend?

The Foundation

Foundation and Empire

Second Foundation

The Caves of Steel

The Naked Sun

The Robots of Dawn

Robots and Empire

 

[BrianFromWA]

I like Card better. It might be that I was a pre-teen when I went through the Foundation series, and in high school when I read Ender's Game. Does LeGuin's Earthsea count? Heinlein's also a favorite of many, though about 180 degrees out from what you'd expect from a Naval Academy grad.

 

[Denny Crane]

Arthur C Clark

 

[julius]

the guy who wrote the bible.


I KEED I KEED!!!


Douglas Adams.

 

[Nikolokolus]

I always favored the more tongue in cheek guys; Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, Robert Aspirin. But I did like some of Heinlein's stuff too.

For Sci-fi/fantasy hybrid, it was tough to top Michael Moorcock's sheer scope and imagination with his eternal champion stuff (the Oswald Bastable and Von Bek characters in particular were my favorites). Stephen King's Dark Tower novels are still something I dust off and re-read every couple of years too.

 

[BlazerCaravan]

Joe Halderman's "The Forever War" and Arthur C Clarke's "Rendezvous With Rama" are two of the best science fiction novels ever. But neither author is my favorite. I think it'd have to be Isaac Asimov. The Foundation trilogy and the Robot books are exquisite, even if the dialogue is dated.

 

[tlongII]

H.P. Lovecraft

 

[VanillaGorilla]

I'm reading the Foundation series right now, and so far I love it. Have you guys read the prequels to Foundation that Asimov wrote a few years before he died? My favorite Asimov book is The End of Eternity. Heinlein is great, and I also love Card. My favorite book of Card's is actually Ender's Shadow, not Ender's Game. I like the Shadow saga better than the Ender series, but I love them all. His Homecoming series is good too. Apparently it's a 'fictionalized' version of The Book of Mormon. Whatever that means.

The Official Book Thread!

 

[BrianFromWA]

I'm 100% with you on the Shadow series being better. Though I haven't read the latest one about Bean and his kids, b/c those who have said it's worth being left hanging over what happens than to see what Card put down on paper.

 

[Eastoff]

I only like ender's game and ender's shadow. The rest are just boring to me.

 

[crowTrobot]

Book of the New Sun series, Gene Wolfe. first read 27 years ago now lol. i'm old. also was really into Gregory Benford in the '80s.

if you're including stuff that leans more towards fantasy 2nd fav would be the original 6 Thomas Covenant books, Steven R Donaldson. Haven't started the newest ones yet, waiting for the last one to come to bogart all 4 at once.

 

[crowTrobot]

the guy who wrote the bible.


I KEED I KEED!!!

joseph smith! l ron hubbard!

 

[BlazerCaravan]

Book of the New Sun series, Gene Wolfe. first read 27 years ago now lol. i'm old.

Oh man, those books are a TRIP! I loved the first book, but lost momentum about halfway through the second.

 

[Eastoff]

slightly off topic, what do genre do you guys label the books, movies, tv shows for the genre of Interview with the Vampire series, True Blood series, Twilight series, Walking Dead series. Traditionally it should be horror, but to me horror is Dawn of the Dead or Texas Chainsaw massacre.

 

[speeds]

Rice is gothic fantasy, haven't seen True Blood but I think it is erotic fantasy, Twilight is shit, Walking Dead is survival horror.

 

[SantaDora]

The classics were mentioned - and they are good, Terry Pratchett is of course great, but others that need to be mentioned:

1. Greg Bear. Fantastic hard-core sci-fi, Darwin's radio for example, is great.
2. Neil Gaiman - some of his books are very good fantasy work of art - American Gods comes to mind.

 

[Nikolokolus]

Rice is gothic fantasy, haven't seen True Blood but I think it is erotic fantasy, Twilight is shit, Walking Dead is survival horror.

Boom.

 

[VanillaGorilla]

The classics were mentioned - and they are good, Terry Pratchett is of course great, but others that need to be mentioned:

1. Greg Bear. Fantastic hard-core sci-fi, Darwin's radio for example, is great.
2. Neil Gaiman - some of his books are very good fantasy work of art - American Gods comes to mind.

I just read American Gods and Neverwhere by Gaiman. They were fantastic, I felt completely immersed in the books.

 

[Hobbesarable]

H.P. Lovecraft

Another excellent author. At the Mountains of Madness is one of my favorite Lovecraft stories!

http://www.feedbooks.com/book/26/at-the-mountains-of-madness

 

[Hobbesarable]

I also started reading some of Clifford D. Simak's books. I finished Shakespeare's Planet and I'm now in the process of reading Cemetery World.

 

[TradeNurkicNow]

If ya'll like Lovecraft, you'll love The House on the Borderlands (1908) by William Hope Hodgson. It's like Lovecraft but comprehensible and actually scary.

Other than that:

Dark Tower series by Stephen King. Yes, this is totally sci-fi/fantasy.
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula LeGuin.
Too many graphic novels to name.

 

[Hobbesarable]

If ya'll like Lovecraft, you'll love The House on the Borderlands (1908) by William Hope Hodgson. It's like Lovecraft but comprehensible and actually scary.

I'll need to check that out. Thanks!

Dark Tower series by Stephen King. Yes, this is totally sci-fi/fantasy.
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula LeGuin.
Too many graphic novels to name.

Excellent suggestions!

 

[BlazerWookee]

It's comic fantasy, not sci fi, but I just finished (and absolutely loved) the first two Jig the Goblin books by Jim C. Hines.

 

[VanillaGorilla]

Anybody read The Lathe of Heaven by Ursala K. Le Guin? It's based in Portland and the story is really interesting.

 

[Sedatedfork]

slightly off topic, what do genre do you guys label the books, movies, tv shows for the genre of Interview with the Vampire series, True Blood series, Twilight series, Walking Dead series. Traditionally it should be horror, but to me horror is Dawn of the Dead or Texas Chainsaw massacre.

The True Blood books... I made it half way through the first one. It's awful.

 

[Hobbesarable]

Anybody read The Lathe of Heaven by Ursala K. Le Guin? It's based in Portland and the story is really interesting.

I haven't. That's on my to read list along with hundreds of other books.

 

[Rastapopoulos]

I haven't read any science fiction in years (except maybe Robopocalypse, which was frankly a little too close to the bone) but when I did, Larry Niven was The Man. According to my Dad, who was a total SF nut, the best Sci-Fi novel ever (and he'd read Dune and Foundation and every Heinlein) was The Mote In God's Eye by Niven and Jerry Pournelle. I can say it was pretty damn gripping. And of course Ringworld was ripped off by Halo.
Other series from my teens that were pretty kick-ass:
The Many Colored Lands series by Julian May
The Well of Souls series by Jack L. Chalker
The Stainless Steel Rat series by Harry Harrison (probably even more dated than the others, but I enjoyed them back then).

 

[Rastapopoulos]

Oh, and here's a name that every English person knows but who is strangely underappreciated over here: John Wyndham. He INVENTED the postapocalyptic novel, and perfected it at the same time, with Day of the Triffids (shamelessly ripped off by 28 Days Later), then went on to re-work it again and again with The Kraken Wakes, the Chrysalids and others. Read Day of the Triffids and marvel at how many of the tropes of things like the Walking Dead are already there.