what's your favourite fantasy/scifi book?

[Sullywhacker]

[QUOTE=Tippster;3708482]

The Wind-up Girl- Paolo Bacigalupi
Perdido Street Station - China Miéville

+1 for these, particularly The Wind-up Girl -- withour peer in the "biopunk" genre. More tradiionally: David Brin's Uplift series, particularly the second book Startide Rising.

[arild]

He invented the world with a friend of his for a role-playing game, so there is lotsa war and battles in all the books... if that's what bothered you then stay away. By now (I still have 2 books to go) I'm so invested in the series' world(s) and characters that I really enjoy the longish flights into thought processes that he spends time on. It's not a linear series by any means.

Besides which, Quick Ben and Kalam Mekhar may be two of the baddest ass characters I've ever encountered.

Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series is my favorite as well, followed by the Malazan Book of the Fallen and Jordan's The Wheel of Time.

Im fucking stuck on the Malaz novels. On book four in my third read-through,had to go back a couple of times because of ic esslemonts contributions, reading house of chains and toll the hounds simultaneously. My mind is going a bit nuts from it.

Kalam and Quick are awesomer than hell. Enjoy the last two books,they are long as all fiddly hell,but a fitting end to it.

Btw,tipp, seen that Erikson is writing a tiste andii prequel trilogy? Color me happy!

Norsk.

[bendtheski]

Considering how Hubbard fucked up thousands if not millions of people with Scientology, I wouldn't waste a penny on his novels. All the proceeds go to that bogus religion. In fact, I wouldn't read his shit if it were free.

I read dianetics. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone just because it was pretty boring, but I don't think it's the book that fucks people up, it's what people have done with some of the information in the book. Either way though, you're correct about the proceeds going to that bogus religion. Too bad because Battlefield Earth is one of the best sci-fi novels I've read.

Others worth considering with very low probability of brain-washing;

Stranger in a strange land by Robert Heinlein
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Footnote on Dianetics; I read it something like 25 years ago and found it mildly interesting. Enough so that I sent in the little tear-out card that came with the book. I was contacted immediately but told the kooks I wasn't really interested. After that I have been contacted at every address I've occupied (at least a dozen) over 25 years. They haven't caught up with my latest yet, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time. Scary. I think they're just waiting for me to have some kind of melt-down and then I'm theirs!!!

I don't think scientology is any more what L. Ron Hubbard intended with dianetics than what the Catholic Church has evolved into from Christ's teachings, but read whatever you want.

[PNWbrit]

I don't think scientology is any more what L. Ron Hubbard intended with dianetics......

It's EXACTLY what he wanted...

[bendtheski]

Well, that's not what I took away from the book. A lot of it was pretty boring though so I might have missed that part

[PB]

Stephenson's Diamond Age and Snow Crash (not really my fav, but definitely recommended); not so impressed with his later efforts. Word has it that Snow Crash is being made into a movie, directed by the Attack the Block dude.

[Shu Shu]

Recent Favs in Sci Fi

Altered Carbon-Richard Morgan (cyberpunk...amazingly fun book)
The City The City-China Miéville (dreamy detective noir sci fi)
The Quantum Thief-Hannu Rajaniemi (hard mind bending sci-fi)
Ready Player One-Ernest Cline (mind-less fun read in one night type of book)
Cloud Atlas-David Mitchell (virtuosic genre hopping with some cool sci fi, and post apocalypse stuff)

Recent Favs in Fantasy

Under Heaven-Guy Gavriel Kay (rich pseudo historical fantasy fiction)
Lies of Locke Lomara-Scott Lynch- (someone else mention this above gotta echo that, its fantastic)
Game of Thrones (Dance with Dragons)-G RR Martin (its kind of an obvious one, but theres nothing else like it)

[DJ2]

A Chronicle for Leibowitz

[Meathelmet]

Ed Bolme : Paranoia: Title Deleted for Security Reasons

This is a book I have laughed more at (with?) than hitchihikers..
It is a pity that it is based on the RPG so the world of alpha city can be a bit weird in the beginning for non initiated.
But, nevertheless, cracking book.

Another book that affected me quite profoundly was The Tripods by John Christopher...
Havent read it since I was 14 or something so it might not be the same anymore. Tempted to read it though.
Now waiting wich director is going to pick it up and make a movie out of it. Would be goddam cinematic epic, very
visual book.

[NoPostholio]

Best multi book series

Chronicles of Thomas Covenant - Donaldson
Read this series prob 4 or 5 times....never gets old

Riverworld - Phillip Jose Farmer
Most interesting premise for a group of books ever....wrote a dungeon series as a sequel that is almost as good

Game of Thrones
Who would have thought a tv show good rival a great set of books

Stand alone books

Armor - Steakley
Best space war book ever - beaten down by insects

Link - Becker
Kinda reminds me of newest alien movie

Contact - Sagan
Not too bad of a movie....

[Tippster]

A Chronicle for Leibowitz

It's called A Canticle for Liebowitz, and yes it's awesome.

[summit]

I just finished the Forever War... excellent book... unlike Starship Troopers which was mediocre.

It's called A Canticle for Liebowitz, and yes it's awesome.

This one has been on my reading list for a while

[Viva]

I still have my copy of "Forever War".

Another SciFi book to consider is: The Lathe of Heaven, by Ursula LeGuin. Outstanding work, I feel.

Dahlgren, by Samuel Delany was a long-time favorite of mine. Strange story.

Almost anything by Philip Dick is going to be good. Some hokey writing, but great stories if you can get into them. Dick's works are more philosophical than technical.

Fred Saberhagen wrote both solid SciFi (Berserker) and fantasy (Book of Swords series).

Fredrick Poel's Gateway was the first SciFi book I read (back around 79 or so) and it was really good. Had it sucked, I may have never pick up a similarly themed title again.

[Danno]

Another SciFi book to consider is: The Lathe of Heaven, by Ursula LeGuin. Outstanding work, I feel.

I can't believe it took this long for LeGuin to be mentioned. Though Lathe of Heaven would not be my first choice of hers.

The Left Hand of Darkness by LeGuin is my all time favorite book. A political thriller with a brilliantly constructed world that is an incredible commentary on human sexuality and the human condition.

Also by LeGuin, The Dispossessed is totally different yet also amazing.

If you prefer fantasy, her Wizard of Earthsea series is quite remarkable, dark and beautiful.

And almost anything by Harlan Ellison is incredible. Not a novelist, mostly short stories. I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream is one of his best collections, as is Deathbird Stories.

[Tippster]

Buster gave a shout-out to LeGuin early. I prefer her Earthsea stuff, but Left Hand of Darkness is considered the birth of "feminist SciFi" so might be interesting to Klar.

Another good read in that vein is Grass by Sheri S. Tepper. Cool book.

[PB]

Since we're hitting the few really good female SF&F writers, I'll throw Karen Travis into the mix, but only for her Wess'Har series. I have a violent allergic reaction to most "feminine" SF&F, but there are a select few female writers that avoid the typical feminine glop.

[horizon]

Very surprised I don't see any recommendations for Greg Egan. His novels are very good (e.g Quarantine) but his short story collections (Axiomatic, Luminous) are amongst the very best I've read, whether they're about near or distant futures.

Ted Chiang writes som excellent short stories, too.

[horizon]

Oh, and Iain M Banks, of course. Try 'The Business", or his Culture series.

[hafilax]

A second vote for Altered Carbon by Morgan. Was surprised to see it listed. If you can handle reading about lots of fantasy gay sex, The Steel Remains is good as well.

Just finished Mindkiller by Spider Robinson which I really enjoyed. Am on to the second book in the loosely connected Lifehouse Trilogy (or is it the Deathkiller trilogy). Once I'm done with that I'll look up some of the suggestions in this thread.

I'm a big William Gibson fan but I find that he really struggles with concluding a story. My favourites of his actually aren't cyberpunk: Pattern Recognition and Spook Country. The best of the cyberpunk is Count Zero IMO.

[Chainsaw_Willie]

...

Ursula LeGuin's EarthSea Trilogy?

...

This, and just about anything else by her, especially "The Disposessed" and "Left Hand of Darkness". She's a fantastic writer and blends sci-fi and fantasy quite well in some of her books.

Hyperion - Dan Simmons

Series: The Belgariad and the Malloreon - David Eddings
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever - Stephen R. Donaldson

These also. Hyperion is great and The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant are unlike anything else I've read. It took me two tries to get through the first book because up to that point I hadn't read something where you're supposed to *dislike* the protagonist. I kept putting the book down because I hated Covenenant, then it finally dawned on me that that's the point, at least at first.

I'll also throw out Roger Zelazny's "Amber" series from the '70s. The first four books are really entertaining (they're all pretty short, too). Unfortunately the 5th book kind of goes off the tracks in wrapping things up, but the series is still a worthy read.

Finally, Kevin J. Anderson "Terra Incognita" series. 3 very entertaining books.

[butterscotch]

damn, good thread and timely as my stack of books to read was dwindling.

[Danno]

I'll also throw out Roger Zelazny's "Amber" series from the '70s. The first four books are really entertaining (they're all pretty short, too). Unfortunately the 5th book kind of goes off the tracks in wrapping things up, but the series is still a worthy .

Lord of Light by Zelazny was one of my favorite books.

[hutash]

end of thread.

Since this thread did not end with the Hitchhikers's Guide as it should have, I will add the rest of the series, and Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency.

My favorite fantasy book is still "The Hobbit". Any book I can read over and over rates high with me, and I can and have read "The Hobbit", and the whoe guide series multiple times.

Once was enough for "Lord of the Rings".

[Grange]

I recently finished the Codex Alera series (six books) by Jim Butcher. It was a good series with the typical farm boy tries to save the world of Alera from evil format. Butcher also writes another series, Dresden Files, that I recently heard described as urban fantasy. It's a big series though with 13 and counting books so far.

[BCMtnHound]

The Khaavren Romances and The Vlad Taltos novels by S. Brust are a entertaining read. The Taltos novels are short enough for 1 or 2 sittings.