Whats your favourite sci-fi novel ? I love a good read and sci-fi is my weapon of choice. I like a story that is well researched and thought provoking as well as being a gripping and enthralling tale. My favourite author is William Gibson, followed closely by Gene Wolfe and Alan Dean Foster. Straying into the realm of fantasy, I read Clive Barker but I much prefer the technical minutiae of hard sci-fi.My top tales would include: 'Idoru' by William Gibson, 'Book of the New Sun' by Gene Wolfe, 'Sentenced to Prism' by Alan Dean Foster and the glorious 'Imajica' and 'Abarat' books by Clive Barker - especially the latter as they are full of beautiful painted illustrations to feed the eye.
Whats yours ?....
I aught to list all the classics as i have them and like them, but - for one passage toward the end of the book - I choose 'Stardancer' which was by a husband and wife team. it's in storage so I can't give you their names (Roberts?), but it moved me to tears, as did the slow destruction of the locals in 'The Fuzzy Papers' by H.Beam Piper.
ReplyDeleteHeinlin's 'Time Enough for Love' is one of few I've read more than once.
'Nomsnu' an ant-eating megatherium type animal similar to a Terran Elephant...
Philip K. Dick and Harlan Ellison for me.
ReplyDeleteSean
Bit "Old School" here.
ReplyDeleteI love Wells...especially "First men In The Moon" and Verne especially "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea", quite a prophetic novel as it goes.
I am also a fan of Arthur C Clarke and Alan Dean Foster.
I also like Raymond F. Jones of "This Island Earth" fame, he is well worth a read.
Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven, especially when writing together. Try 'The Mote in God's Eye' for a pretty damn good first alien encounter story. Written in '75 but still way up there amongst my favourites. Prequel to that is 'Future History' by Pournelle on his own, about a future mercenary legion. Pournelle knows his military history, and I'd even recommend this to military buffs despite it being SF. :) Both stand up to being reread a few times too.
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Paul
I remember The Mote...as a good read, Paul...I got the motherlode at the weekend, I'll email you!
ReplyDelete'Lieseadd'...a clinging entangling weed that smalls of citrus?
Hi Wotan, for me it must be The Thermodynamic Duo
ReplyDeleteDefinitely Maybe by Arkady & Boris Strugatsky
The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov
Arto
mmm - classics to a man! Hve to admit to loving Arthur C Clarke and Asimovs Robot series and John W Cambells 'Who Goes There ?' James Whites Sector General series are another favourite too!
ReplyDeleteRendezvous with Rama got me started, it was serialized on R4 just as I left school, within a year I'd read 100 or so, the library was always selling off its old hardbacks and I'd read one or two a day...while growing my hair and listening to THE Floyd!
ReplyDeleteOh yes, I had hair once....
'...' (I can't even pronounce it!)
My Dad had a bookcase full of US paperbacks (most of which have now sadly crumbled away). And Dad & self had every Asimov up to '80 or so between us. Robot series were good, Foundation series as good, Elijah Bailey stories were excellent. Loved all the short stories, including the (non-SF) detective shorts. Even have his collection of limericks somewhere. :)
ReplyDelete'acestsy': niche pharmaceutical for dyslexics and anagram lovers - makes them mvoe till mroning!
Hee hee - love that photograph, WOTAN!
ReplyDeleteToad is strictly old school. My introduction to SF novels was via a radio production of Isaac Asimov's Foundation series. The whole atmosphere captured me, and I didn't want the episodes to end. It was from that that I bought every Asimov book I could lay hands on.
Yes, I'm with you, Paul - those Elijah Bailey stores were (are) quite something. What some might not realise is that he also created a marvellous Jeeves-like character for a number of stories set in a modern day Gentleman's club.
Rendezvous with Rama was another eye-opener ... what a shame the sequels never lived up to that. But much as I enjoy his novels, there is something that irritates me about his writing. Perhaps it's the lecturey tone? Don't know, but there are times when I have wanted to slap him.
20,000 Leagues Under The Sea? Wonderful, so wonderful ... apart from those damned, endless lists he scatters around. You can imagine him sitting there with an encylclopedia open before him, laboriously copying the entries ^_^
For me, among the very best are the "Hooded Swan" novels by Brian Stableford. They are quite unlike any other SF I have read. If you haven't read them, give yourself a treat by getting hold of them.
But perhaps best of all among SF novels for me is The Black Cloud by Fred Hoyle. Again, none of his other novels ever matched up to it, but The Black Cloud certainly is a classic!
Was the Hooded Swan a sort of militarized exploration ship? Sort of Captain Kirk without the silliness? I recognize Brian Stableford, so I think I read them, and if it's what I think it is, they were good!
ReplyDeleteThe Hooded Swan was a ship constructed using both Human and Alien technologies, which the pilot controlled by though via an interface. Said pilot, the hero of the novels, is a moody, loner who has a symbiotic alien in his head - it attached itself to him when he was marooned on a planet for a time.
ReplyDeleteBrilliant novels. Really worth a read if you can get hold of them.
That should have been "controlled by thought" not "controlled by though" ... sigh ... the menace of the typo strikes once more. In defence, Toad names the lateness of the hour (1:22am).
ReplyDeleteIf there were other crew it's the one I'm thinking of, if not it's something else, and i must have read some of his other stuff!
ReplyDelete'Abbyr'...a small carbon-eating insect that lives in coal dust!
Yes, there were other crew members. This page might jog your memories a lil' bit more:
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hooded_Swan_(series)
Ah yes 'Halcyon Drift', it was a good read!
ReplyDelete'Pollidi'...Multi-headed African Dictator!