Your top ten sci-fi novels

[Wyrminarrd]

Anything by Robin Hobb. The Liveship Traders is good but I love the 6 books in the 2 Farseer Trilogy's.

My ultimate favorite at the moment is Robert Jordan. If you like big, indepth books, he's for you. The series is curently at book 11/12 and they are big!.

Like the poster before me said, those books are fantasy and this thread is named "Your top ten sci-fi novels

That said I can agree that Robin Hobb is a great author, I´ve read the Farseers trilogy´s and I really liked them. The Liveship Traders trilogy is currently sitting on my self waiting for me to finish some of the other stuff I own.

Robert Jordans "Wheel of time" series starts great and for the first 6-7 books is one of the best reads I´ve ever come across. However, after that the series takes an incredible turn for the worst and the pace of the books grinds to a halt, it feels like nothing at all has happened in the last 2-4 books. At the very least all that happen could easily have been fitted into one or two books

But back to sci-fi now, David Feintuch´s Midshipman series is a great read and I highly recommand the first 4 books in it.

World War series by Harry Turtledove is great, it´s a story of an alien invasion that takes place during the height of WWII. His colonization books in the same world are also worth reading. I did however find his latest book "Homeward bound" to be a bit of a let down.

[ShadowMaat]

Avoid Hobb's Shaman's Crossing. What a steaming pile of bat guano.

But top ten SCIFI, eh? Hmm... Can't say I could put the books in any sort of order, but...

To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
Abyss (novelization of the movie) by Orson Scott Card
Semper Mars by Ian Douglas
Forever War by Joe Haldeman
Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein
On Basilisk Station by David Weber
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
War of the Worlds by HG Wells
Warchild by Karin Lowachee

Of course, ask me again tomorrow and I could probably think of some more.

[Easter Lily]

I found the third and fourth books of the Hitchhiker series rather anticlimactic and rather pointless... One and two were probably the best... the funniest. Five was okay...
Personally I think the original radio series with Simon Jones is probably the best way to enjoy the Hitchhiker's Guide.

[Trek_Girl42]

I found the third and fourth books of the Hitchhiker series rather anticlimactic and rather pointless... One and two were probably the best... the funniest. Five was okay...
Personally I think the original radio series with Simon Jones is probably the best way to enjoy the Hitchhiker's Guide.

Is it.....available somewhere (the radio series)? I love Hitchhiker's but have only read the first three (I lost my copy for six months and when it turned up I didn't get around to getting back to it, but now I have a new set so there's no excuse)

[Betelgeuze]

I don't read much scifi, i'm more of a fantasy fan, but i really enjoyed The Demon Princes by Jack Vance.

[warmbeachbrat]

Avoid Hobb's Shaman's Crossing. What a steaming pile of bat guano.

Really? I was thinking of reading it next, since I liked her other stuff--what was so bad about it?

Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

What was this book like? I saw it a while back, but no one could tell me anything about it....

[ShadowMaat]

Really? I was thinking of reading it next, since I liked her other stuff--what was so bad about it?

I wrote a review of Shaman's Crossing on another site:

I've read some of her books before and liked them, but this one (first in a series) was tedious. The book positively dragged. I almost gave up several times because for page after page, not much happened. The opening scene (ten draggy pages in) seemed to be significant but, in fact, had NOTHING to do with the rest of the book. There's a chance the character introduced there will come into play in book 2, but at this point I'm irritated enough not to bother with any more.

The last quarter of the book was interesting, but the story is still hampered by the main character, who is close-minded and stubborn and never seems to learn any better. He spends the entire book in denial and at the end, he's still in denial. He continually looks down upon his younger female cousin (because she's a girl but refuses to act like it) even though she was more personable and intelligent in the few scenes she was in than he was in the entire book.

The motivations of ANY of the characters remain a complete mystery and when shocking things happen to those around the main character, it doesn't seem to have any effect on him. It's like those things happened just to add some drama to the story and show us how serious things were, but there was no actual impact on anything. The conclusion was also kinda random and while I understand that it's probably more set-up for book 2, I still don't understand why it's worth mentioning.

I hate series/trilogies where the first book is nothing but set-up for what follows. It makes the author seem incompetent. This series could probably start with book 2 and there'd be no loss at all. An occasional explanation dropped here and there could sum up everything of importance that happened without the tedium of having to go through the whole first book.

Definitely NOT recommended to others.

What was this book like? I saw it a while back, but no one could tell me anything about it....

Eyre Affair is a literary sort of scifi. It's intelligent and it treats the reader as someone intelligent. There's a wonderfully wacky element threading through it, but it never crosses the line into camp and it never forgets that there's a serious side to things, too.

As a bibliophile, I love the idea of a reality where books are so important/popular that they have their own police force and who hasn't dreamed about being able to step into your favorite story and interact with the characters? I ended up reading a lot in self-defense because of this series: Jane Eyre (of course), Great Expectations, Alice in Wonderland... And I have a few more that I haven't gotten around to reading yet.

They're wonderful books and I have multiple editions of all of them.

I'm still waiting for someone to do a RHPS-style performance of Richard III...

[warmbeachbrat]

Thanks!!

I'll pick up The Eyre Affair as soon as I can. It sounded good, but sometimes that doesn't pan out, so I always like to get feedback from someone who's read the book.

Eh. Maybe I'll check Shaman's Crossing out of the library--when I have free time (like never!).

[the_cadpig]

In addition to all the great books mentioned already, I know of a few I haven't seen listed yet (or I missed it) that are favorites of mine:


The Vorkosigan Series - Lois McMaster Bujold (There are, I believe, 11 or 12 books set in this universe Bujold has conjured up and they are all absolutely fantastic, IMHO. Best to start with "Shards of Honor" or "Warrior's Apprentice" though. You'll want to read them all.)

Downbelow Station & Cyteen - CJ Cherryh (Cyteen takes work but it's very good)

Heavy Planet, Needle, Ice World - Hal Clement

Mistwalker - Denise Lopes Heald

The Left Hand Of Darkness & The Earthsea series - Ursula LeGuin

The Liaden Universe series - Sharon Lee & Scott Miller (these books contain some of the best Space Opera around. I love all of them. Start with Conflict of Honors - although, I believe there is an omnibus available with the first three books called Partners In Necessity)

Anything by Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett (I know these guys have been mentioned but *jeez!* they make me laugh )

The Snow Queen - Joan Vinge

Her Smoke Rose Up Forever - James Tiptree, Jr (aka Alice Shelton)

Black On Black - KD Wentworth

The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

The Sparrow - Mary Doria Russel

The Stardoc series - SL Viehl

[Trek_Girl42]

The Time Traveller's Wife is a wonderful book- doesn't really "catagorize" as sci-fi, but it appeals. Great recommendations cadpig!

[MB.Eddie]

I should also say something about the Foundation books. I would highly recommend reading ONLY the original trilogy--that is, Foundation, Foundation and Empire, and Second Foundation (in that order). Asimov picked up the series again 20 years after finishing Second Foundation, writing two more sequels (Foundation's Edge and Foundation and Earth) and then two prequels (Prelude to Foundation and Forward the Foundation) because he had no idea where to go with the sequels any further.

I have read all 7 of the books.

- The first 3 are classic.
- Foundation's Edge was ok
- I really didnt like Foundation and Earth.
- However, both the Prequals were great. Loved them both.

Asimov is one of the best writers in history.

[MB.Eddie]

There is so many good Sci-Fi books out there. Some of my favourites are:

Hope Nation Series - David Feintuch
Foundation Series - Isaac Asimov
Robot Novels - Isaac Asimov
The Mote in Gods Eye - Niven, and Pournelle
Tactics of Mistake - Gordon R. Dickson

[Pitry]

Erm...the introduction to Foundation's Edge (written by Asimov) says that he had no intention of ever revisiting the series, until his publisher offered him a very large cheque to write another. Plus his wife has even come out and said that he started writing prequels only because he had no idea where to go after he finished Foundation and Earth.

It...did? Sorry then, me bad. It jsut that with Robots and Empire it really did feel like that's where he was aiming, and connecting the entire thing from the Foundation POV makes sense... To me

Well, there does appear to be an unwritten law that the quality of books in a series goes down as the series progresses, though I assume there are exceptions.
I think that EG is the best book of the series by far, though I really enjoyed SFTD and Xenocide. Things went downhill after that for me - never got into the Bean series either.

I find it depends more on the writer than the length of the books. But true, it's easier to run out of ideas/ throws the series into a direction that is, well... questionable the longer you write it.
Also keep in mind that not all the people who appear to be good writers actually are. Sometimes a writer just has one good idea, and once that's done, you really get to see that the rest of their ideas as simply bad.

As for Bean, I started reading them, got slightly annoyed with ES, so-overly disappointed with Hegemon, read Shadow Puppets out of sheer masochism and went through Giant when I had a spare half-hour. What I managed to speed-read told me I don't want to read that book. As in, ever.
But the truth is I'm not too hot on OSC's other books, as well. Just Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead. Xenocide.... don't get me started

Same holds true for TV shows.

True, in some cases. In others they manage to continue quite nicely *angelic smile*

Oh! Perdido Street Station. All my friends started reading that a while ago. I dunno, from what they described it didn't sound all that good.

[SG-1ssm]

I'd have to say Arthur C. Clarke's books. That man is brilliance, one of the most influential authors in history. I hope to one day meet him.

[Pitry]

I'd have to say Arthur C. Clarke's books. That man is brilliance, one of the most influential authors in history. I hope to one day meet him.

Not all people can stomach him, tho. I mean, I loved Rendezvous with Rama, but I can see why some people would have a problem with the book - it is basically the Technical Specs for Alien Ships 101.