GolfHos

Lots of geeks here.  Figure this dog will hunt.  I thought about doing it as a poll but too much work to handle the "others" that surely will arise. 

Please, no fantasy.  That's a different thread.    ;D

Best for me by leaps and bounds is Dune. 

There are probably a half-dozen Herbert books in my top ten including a few of the other Dune books.  White Plague is excellent.  The Jesus Incident and The Lazarus Effect are great.  I like the Foundation series by Asimov, they'd crack my list.  But the original Dune is, for me, perhaps the best novel ever written.

Hidden agenda here.  I need some recommendations.   ;)

I'm not a huge sci-fi reader, nor have I really ever been. However, a few that I've read and enjoyed:

Starship Troopers
Stranger in a Strange Land
The Foundation Series
Fahrenheit 451 (might not qualify as pure "science fiction")
A Scanner Darkly
VALIS Trilogy

All time best Science Fiction book/s: A Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy

meh, all the great stuff out there merges scifi and fantasy
 ;)


is 1984 still sciFI, since it has come true ?  [sm_devil]

I thought about listing Nineteen Eighty-Four and A Brave New World, but somehow neither actually strikes me as science fiction so much as political commentary. Then again, Heinlein and Bradbury sort of fall there too...

Rules are made to be broken.  I didn't mean hard science only.  Just wanted to keep Tolkein, Eddings, etc. out of it.  List away.

I dig Heinlein too.  Just finished Time Enough For Love for about the fifth time. 

Hard to classify that dude that's for sure.  Way too much man-on-man action going on though.  NTTAWWT.

Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy is my fav.

Callahan's Crosstime Saloon and the entire Callahan series is pretty good too.

Anything by Robert Rankin.

Really liked Dune and the one or two that followed it.  Then I thought they got weak.

Foundation series.  Asimov is (was) the Man.

I actually rather liked the couple Philip *8==>* novels I've read.  Titles escape me right now, of course.

Andromeda Strain and Jurassic Park were good reads., but I wouldn't class either as Best Sci-Fi Novel Evar.

Dune.

Anything by Ayn Rand. Clarke. Asimov.

I always considered Ms. Rand to be a bit "out there" but never had I thought of her as "sci-fi."  [sm_shock]

I almost feel like I'm missing out on something here.

meh.

 ;D

(http://www.maidenfans.com/imc/pictures/pictures06_sit/single16_stranger_a_small.jpg)

Yeah, you're probably right in the classic sense, I guess I found elements of science and fiction in a few of her writings, most especially Atlas Shrugged, but as far as a pure Sci-Fi writer like say a George Orwell or an Isacc Asimov no.

Jules Verne was another that grabbed me at an early age, anyone who can think out of the box and write about a trip around the moon 100 years before it happened is aces in my book.

Pierre Boulle who gave us Planet of the Apes. Dang, how freaky was that for a 5 year old boy to watch and then later read.

[sidebar]
We have the Science Fiction Hall of Fame here in Seattle, and for a geek like me it was heaven, it would probably rank #3 in my list of all the "Halls".
http://www.sfhomeworld.org/
[sidebar]

Uisce Ba-Booey...go to the SF Hall link and then enter where it says "Hall of Fame", it list all enshrinees and the category they were nominated in, all the Halls writers are there.

Oh man I forgot Phillip K. *8==>* (hey man, the dudes name is *8==>*, why can't we just say *8==>*, sometimes it really pisses me off that we can't say something like *8==>* especially when the guys name is *8==>*)

The Man in the High Castle
Martian Time Slip
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (which became the Blade Runner movie)

and H.G. Wells
The Time Machine: An Invention (1895)
The Island of Dr Moreau (1896)
The Invisible Man: A Grotesque Romance (1897)
The War of the Worlds (1898)

and Ursula K. LeGuin
The Left Hand of Darkness
The Lathe of Heaven was an awesome book and a suck ass movie starring Kelso and I think a Cosby daughter.  [sm_disgust]

 [sm_headbang]

Thanks for the link Seamie. 

Is Ms. Guin really all that?  I've picked her stuff up a 100 times but never made it to checkout.

Speaking of female sci-fi writers, Julian May is all over my top ten list.  Can't believe I forgot about her.  Her Pliocene Exile and Galactic Milieu series are both outstanding.

Try "The Lathe of Heaven" if you can, and then you tell me, it's just personal opinion but I really like her work, of course it's been 25 years since I've read any.

Man, I just flash backed (happens a lot) to a made for TV movie of that book, must be in the late 70's, with that "Greatest American Hero" dude...Bruce Davidson?...it was actually pretty good, much better than the recent and aforementioned "Kelso" debacle.

Ok. Wasn't the hero dude, I always got the two actors mixed up, but it was Bruce Davison.

Not to be confused with Bruce *8==>*inson, who as we all know...

And again not to be confused then with Phillip K. *8==>*...yada yada yada.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081036/