Hello,

I'm new to the forum. Great thread. Agree with many of the recommendations, and looking forward to trying out the rest.

I noticed there aren't a lot of women authors on most people's lists--besides Le Guin, who is very good. Have you read and liked these others?

- "The Sparrow" and "Children of God" by Mary Doria Russell

- The "Company" series by Kage Baker

- Anything by Octavia Butler

Peace.

Too hard........
I can't put the top 10 books, but I can put the top 10 Authors, but in no order whatsoever.
- Card, Orson Scott
- Niven, Larry
- McCaffery, Anne
- Eddings, David
- Burroughs, Edgar Rice
- Zelazny, Roger
- Tolkien, John Ronald Reuel (JRR Tolkien)
- Axler, James
- Alten, Steve (Domain Series)
- Rowling, Joanne (aka, J.K. Rowling)

They are all good, and some don't get the publicity they deserve.

1. Lotr and the hobbit by Tolkein
2. A clockwork orange by anthony burgess
3. frank herbert's dune
4. anything by phillip k dick

I'm a compulsive list maker, and a lover of speculative fiction, so here goes: (no order)

This list wld probably be significantly different if my library was on hand. Some true loves will slip my mind, I'm sure.

Robert Heinlein - Stranger in a Strange Land

Arthur C. Clarke - The City & the Stars

Dangerous Visions - edited by Harlan Ellison

Larry Niven - Ringworld

Joe Haldeman - The Forever War

Alfred Bester - The Demolished Man

Christopher Priest - Inverted World

Brian Aldiss - Hothouse

Philip K. Dick - Martian Time Slip

J.G. Ballard - His environmental disaster trilogy:- 'The Drowned World, The Drought, The Crystal World. (The Wind from Nowhere, another enviro tale, his first, is pretty bad, even Ballard disowns it)

Robert E. Howard - "Red Nails"

Harry Harrison - 'Make Room, Make Room & Captive Universe ( Dark City surely ripped this off)

Robert Silverberg - EVERYTHING (stories & novels) from 1967's 'To Open the Sky to 1984's 'Gilgamesh the King'. Arguably the most consistent long lasting run of science fiction/fantasy writing in the history of the genres.

Michael Moorcock - The 'Elric' novels, and pretty much any of his serialized character stories. A giant

Lewis Carroll - 'Alice Adventure's in Wonderland/ Through the Looking Glass'

That's enough for now. I'm tired. What wonderful places I have travelled to courtesy of these people....

The Earth Abides
Day of the Triffids
Alas, Babylon (fits here I think)
Childhood's End
Avalon
Hobbit and Lord of the Rings
Witchworld series by Norton (been many years. I think it is Witchworld)

I wasn't that crazy about Stranger in a Strange Land. I thought towards the end you could hear the author's voicing his own opinions waaaay too strongly. Granted, I loved the character of Jubal Harshaw, but otherwise, I don't know if I would recommend it.

I would, however, recommend Neuromancer, which several people have mentioned already. Not only did it usher in a darker, bleaker version of the future, but did so while incorporating the inklings of the internet.

I feel like you could debate these all day, but one that will always have a soft spot in my heart is Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson. Easily the best cyberpunk book written, both for its creativity of thought, humor, and vision. This is the book that people are basing Second Life on, and despite being written in '92, it's eerie how this book is becoming more and more historical than not.

pewpewlasers...the sound of old TV lasers firing, no?

I agree with you about Stranger, that Heinlein is really selling his ideas under the guise of fiction, but for all that, I find the writing strong, and the characters fun. Opinions I can disagree with, but bad writing I'm stuck with.

Neal Stephenson is certainly up there in the elite of the modern crop, as I think Alastair Reynolds and Peter F. Hamilton are as well.

Have you read Altered Carbon...author's name escapes me right now..

No one mentioned Snowcrash yet...and i think it belongs in the top 25, hell on some top 100 boks of all time snow crash makes the list.

If it's sci fi and fantasy and we aren't discriminating against the 'age' target of a group...i think the dark is rising should be considered by susan cooper, maybe wrinkle in time.

I know a lot of people lvoe cs lewis but bores the heck out of me

what about newer classics like Altered Carbon which is a pretty incredible and almost genre bending book

Hrm, bit of an old topic but had to mention a couple I hadn't seen yet, that are some of the best books I've had the pleasure of reading:

Lord of Light - Roger Zelazny
Neverness - David Zindell
A Requiem for Homo Sapiens (trilogy) - David Zindell
Tales of the Dying Earth - Vance
Spin - Robert Charles Wilson

Also various Brust, Brin, GGK, KSR, and just about everything else by Zelazny as well.

Reckoner, how cool of you to give a vote to Vance's Dying Earth series.
Such imagination!!

Zelazny is a mad bastard, 'ey?

HIS DARK MATERIALS! The movie is god awful, but I'm in the middle of the second book now and cannot put it down. Brilliant stuff.

I can't say I'm well versed in the classics, but of what I have read one book comes to the front of what I've read.

Dying of the Light - George R.R. Martin

There was something incredibly depressing and poignant about this book to me. When I was finished reading it I knew without a doubt it was my favorite book.

I can say without hyperbole that Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun should be taught alongside the likes of Joyce's Ulysses.

Others I'd recommend are Jack Vance's Dying Earth novels, Cordwainer Smith's Intrumentality of Mankind stories, and Stanislaw Lem.

Orson Scott Card is a hack imo. Ender's Game was merely okay, and the rest of his books don't even reach that level. *Hides*