Favorite Sci-Fi books?

[heh2k]

Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan is really good, as are the subsequent books in the series.

+1 Neal Asher's Polity series is also good, but very similar. Not sure who wrote theirs first. For those who like old school cyberpunk short stories, try to find a copy of Mirrorshades.

Random scifi book: Mission Tori



Edit: One thing about Asher's Polity universe that I find very intriguing: AI's run governments (ie, benevolent dictators).

[Erik 1]

Glory Road is a great one. Hadn't thought about it in years.

Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen, H. Beam Piper

Not science fiction, but Silverlock, by John Myers Myers is one of the greatest. Also, all of the original Conan books by Robert E. Howard.

[mattjmcd]

"Prince of Mercenaries"
"Prince of Sparta"
"Go tell the Spartans"

[bkb0000]

Dune series... gives my escapism wood just thinking about it. the Mars series was great too- Red/Blue/Green Planet. Good science fiction is pretty damn hard to find.

there's a lot of good fantasy- good in that it tells a decent, creative story. but even good fantasy is still pretty ****in G-rated and tame. I really liked Feist's Riftwar and Serpent War series'... but the ultimate in fantasy is most definately George R R Martin's Song of Fire and Ice series. you want brutal violence? no "heros," just players? good-die-first kind of shit? Song of Fire and ice- most violent and graphic series i've ever read, and really well written. unfortunately, much like all series', the author is now trying to milk it and draw the story out- should have ended at book 3, but it's now going to 5 books i think.. but the first 3, especially the first 2 books were phenominal.

[Bubba FAL]

Grew up reading Bradbury, Vonnegut, and Orwell.

Others I liked:
Hitchhiker's Guide
A Clockwork Orange
Anthem
I Am Legend
Bored of the Rings (spoof of Tolkien's book)

[littleshoe]

Started out with Have spacesuit and will travel and went from there. I prefer the space based vs the fantasy stuff.

Robert Heinlein
Starship Troopers
Time Enough for Love (Fav chapter: the man who was too lazy to fail)

Ian Douglas
Heritage Trilogy, Legacy Trilogy, Inheritance Trilogy

Rick Shelley
Dirigent Mercenary Corps Series

Bill Baldwin
The Helmsman Saga

David Drake
LT Leary series
Honor Harrington series

LOTR Series

To Read
John Scalzi-Old Man's War
Jack Campbell-The Lost Fleet series

[pacifico]

As others have said, Philip K Dick was a genius. Of his:
-Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
-Flow my tears, the policeman said
-The Cosmic Puppets
-Any number of his short stories

Ray Bradbury - mostly his earlier short story collections like R is for Rocket, S is for Space, The October Country, The Illustrated Man, I sing the body electric! and of course Fahrenheit 451 and the Martian chronicles.

Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash
George Orwell, 1984 (though not sci-fi so much as dystopian near future)
H.P. Lovecraft, nearly anything (more fantasy/horror than sci-fi)
Tolkien's LOTR (again, more fantasy)
Hyperion was quite good.
George RR Martin is great, and he is still writing. Good stuff.

I wanted to like Ender's Game seeing as it came very highly recommended by a number of friends, but either I just don't get it or I thought it was a little clumsy on the topic of religion. It's been a few years, though, so I should probably reread it.

[RogerinTPA]

Forgot V. The TV series was pretty good too.

[buzz_knox]

In addition to many of those listed above

The Hammer's Slammers series by David Drake

Passage at Arms by Glen Cook

The various series by Ian Douglas

Monster Hunter International by Larry Correia (humor horror written by a gun nut for gun nuts)

[geminidglocker]

Most of my favs have been mentioned, Dean Ing wrote Pulling Through. It's a good one about nuclear war.