Science Fiction Recommendations

[Detour]

the 3 halo books are actually good, serious: the fall of reach and first stike are the best, both written by eric nylund , the flood is written by william dietz and is still good but I enjoyed nylund a lot more

Yeah, I quite enjoyed Nylund's books. I also got the feeling he got bit of inspiration for The Fall of Reach from Ender's Game.

[Calliander]

Oh yeah, there's a good series of Star Wars novels, too. I think the author's name is something Zahn. The ones with Admiral Thrawn. They were pretty awesome.

[Salsashark]

Just a couple recommendations...

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - Robert A Heinlein
Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert A Heinlein
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch - Philip K. Dick

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress led me to buy about 30 other Heinlein books off of ebay, only one more of which I've actually got around to reading, heh.

I second these and Dune.

[Error]

The Zahn series of Star Wars books:

Heir to the Empire
Dark Force Rising
The Last Command

and then later in the continuity

Spectre of the Past
Vision of the Future

All are excellent reads. But Zahn also has another series of books that he wrote that were pretty good, The Conqueror Trilogy.

[Cowutopia]

Most of the good stuff has been mentioned but there are some classics you should read if you haven't yet: Brave New World and to a lesser sci-fi extent, 1984.

[Prince Planet]

Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light. It shared the Hugo Award with Dune in 1967. Easy to find now since it was just reprinted as a trade paperback.

Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun tetrology. Not the easiest read (nor are most of his books), but worth it if you don't mind putting in a little effort. Certainly a contender for the finest literature the so-called SF community has produced.

Edit: Upon some further reflection, it may have been Zelazny's Creatures of Light and Darkness that won the Hugo in the same year as Dune. Whatever.

[Regus]

I went on an Asimov binge last summer, I plowed through all the robot novels, read a bunch of his short stories, but by the time that I finished foundation I was burnt out.

Still, the man knows how to write, definetly pick up some of his short stories.

[enigmajelly]

There are so many scifi series out there that people often forget about some of the absolute classics that stand alone.

Alfred Bester's "The stars, my destination" is among the more incredible things I've ever read, extremely well done and thoughtful.

Arthur Clark's "Childhood's End" is a classic that is often passed over for his more well known works, but in my opinion far surpasses them.

Audrey Neffenegger has a book called "The Time Traveller's Wife" not traditional scifi, very very well written and probably the most well thought out and complicated time travel plot of all time. It is, at its core, a love story, so if you're looking for crazy space battles and stuff then skip it. But if you're looking for wild originality and excellent writing, jump in.

[Compass]

I saved your post, enigmajelly. Those all sound interesting (even though I read Clarke's Stranger in a Strange Land and hated it, still, I'll give him another shot).

[kingoffighters]

Try Walter Jon Williams' Dread Empire Falls trilogy. I recently finished book 3 and find it quite entertaining. The characters are believable, the situation they are thrown in was pretty awesome, and book 2 has a cool twist that made the conclusion such a rush. Book 1 is called "The Praxis".

Edit: If you can find it, track down the Mosaic novel series: Wild Cards (up to book 17 now, but there was no recent reprint from book 6 to 14). It is really great.