Essential Sci-fi [Archive]

imported_Adam Warren

04-22-2002, 03:38 AM

What books(or series) do you consider essential for every science-fiction fan's consumption?

I'm thinking:

1984 - Orwell
The Foundation series - Aasimov
Wizard - Varley
Dune - Frank Herbert
The Martian Chronicles - Ray Bradbury
Ringworld - Niven
Hyperion - Dan Simmons
A Brave New World - Huxley
Startide Rising - Brin
Four Lords of the Diamond - Jack L. Chalker
I Robot - Aasimov
Childhood's End - Clarke

But I must be forgetting some...

Seabass Inna Bun

04-22-2002, 03:56 AM

Everything I need to know about life I learned from David Gerrold's The War Against The Chtorr.

For the cerebral, there's always le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness, Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun, or The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (available on DVD in just eight more sleeps).

'The Ascent of Wonder' is the best compilation of short stories I've ever read. Bring a snack, it's big.

Richard Dickson

04-22-2002, 12:37 PM

This isn't meant to be my final list of "essential" sci-fi, but it should give some ideas to get the discussion going. I do consider all these books to be important ones, though.

Douglas Adams
The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Brian Aldis
The Helliconia Trilogy
Isaac Asimov
The Caves of Steel The Naked Sun The Robots of Dawn The Foundation series
Pierre Boulle
Planet of the Apes
Ray Bradbury
The Martian Chronicles Farenheit 451
David Brin
Startide Rising
Anthony Burgess
A Clockwork Orange
Edgar Rice Burroughs
The John Carter of Mars series
Orson Scott Card
Ender's Game
Michael Chriton
The Andromeda Strain
Arthur C. Clarke
Childhood's End Rendezvous With Rama
Gordon R. Dickson
Dorsai!
Philip Jose Farmer
The Riverworld Series
William Gibson
Neuromancer
Joe Haldeman
The Forever War
Harry Harrison
The Stainless Steel Rat Series The Eden Trilogy
Robert Heinlein
Stranger In a Strange Land The Puppet Masters Starship Troopers
Frank Herbert
Dune
Ursula K. LeGuin
The Lathe of Heaven The Left Hand of Darkness
Anne McCaffrey
Decision at Doona
Walter M. Miller, Jr.
A Canticle for Leibowitz
Larry Niven
Ringworld
Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
Lucifer's Hammer Footfall The Mote In God's Eye
Frederik Pohl
Gateway
Mary Shelley
Frankenstein
Dan Simmons
Hyperion
E.E. "Doc" Smith
The Chronicles of the Lensmen
Neal Stephenson
Snow Crash
Jules Verne
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea Journey to the Center of the Earth
Kurt Vonnegut
Slaughterhouse Five
H.G. Wells
The War of the Worlds The Time Machine First Men In the Moon
In doing this list, I found <a href="http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk" target="_blank">Fantastic Fiction</a> to be a great resource.

Dan Laugharn

04-22-2002, 01:43 PM

and Poxy nails it.

DaveB

04-22-2002, 01:55 PM

Nice list, indeed, but a lack of Phillip K. Dick and Harlan Ellison was noted.

I'd say Ellison's Deathbird Stories (or maybe just the entire Essential Ellison collection) should be on there, as well as Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and maybe Gameplayers of Titan or UBIK.

Richard Dickson

04-22-2002, 02:21 PM

I like Ellison and am not that familiar with Dick (no comments from the peanut gallery). I recognize the importance some attach to them, but going with my personal feelings, I felt the other books had a little more resonance with me.

Greg Hansen

04-22-2002, 05:56 PM

If I may, I'd like to add the following...

Greg Bear
Eon series
Forge of God series
Blood Music

John Christopher
Tripod Trology

Roald Dahl
Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator

Philip Jose Farmer
Dark is the Sun

James Patrick Hogan
Giants series

Aldous Huxley
Brave New World

Madeleine L'Engle
Murry Family series (A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet)

C S Lewis
Cosmic series (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra aka Voyage to Venus, That Hideous Strength aka The Tortured Planet)

Michael Moorcock
Jerry Cornelius series

Now, there are several listed that are for a 'younger' audience. However, I think that in order to properly appreciate Sci-Fi literature you really should be exposed to it at an early age.

Just my two cents.

Cruikshank

04-22-2002, 07:51 PM

I would add Philip Jose Farmer's "A Feast Unknown" to the list. That book is something amazing. He takes sex and superheroes and turns it all inside out and backwards. Also Farmer's "The Number of the Beast." Hey, you got to love a book that has Forrest J. Ackerman as one of its heroes.

Richard Dickson

04-22-2002, 07:55 PM

I forgot to mention Harry Turtledove's Guns of the South. Great book that actually is taught in a lot of American history classes.

Blunt

04-22-2002, 10:22 PM

No Norman Spinrad on anyone's list? I throw Bug Jack Barron into the mix.

Chavez

04-22-2002, 10:31 PM

Most stuff I'd have mentioned is already up there, but I have to give a shoutout to:

Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars/Blue Mars/Green Mars trilogy; nabbed a Hugo and 2 Nebulas between the 3; brilliant near-future 'hard' sf (anything by KSR is pretty damn good, IMO)

CJ Cherryh's Downbelow Station is a personal fave (hence my old name Mazian)

And I have yet to read any bad Harry Harrison; Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers is some wry, b-movie fun, West of Eden is an acknowledged classic, and The Hammer and The Cross trilogy is just fucking brilliant.

Kirby Drummond

04-23-2002, 10:28 AM

No mention of Mr. Bachman's The Running Man?

Greg Hansen

04-23-2002, 11:53 AM

I can't believe I forgot this...

Julian May
Galactic Milieu series
Intervention series
Pliocene Exiles series

Kevin Matchstick

04-24-2002, 03:35 PM

'The Stars My Destination' by Alfred Bester. Such a great book. Has anyone read it? Poxy, I thought for sure I'd see it listed in your big bunch o' reading.

Michael Rabattino

04-24-2002, 03:40 PM

Speaking of Essential Sci-Fi, I just got Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion in the mail.

If the books are even 1/10th as good to me as you guys say they are, then they will be awesome!

DaveB

04-24-2002, 05:43 PM

Kevin Matchstick:
'The Stars My Destination' by Alfred Bester. Such a great book. Has anyone read it? Poxy, I thought for sure I'd see it listed in your big bunch o' reading.Think I read it after you or someone else brought it up here, actually. Enjoyed it lots.

Mad Man Mundt

04-24-2002, 07:18 PM

I too have read, "The Stars My Destination." Excellent story. Sometimes I swear like Gully Foyle. "I kill you filthy." I am a nerd.

Michael Rabattino

04-25-2002, 08:23 PM

I thought I knew what horror was....I thought I had a pretty good idea.....

....but then I read the Priest's Tale in Hyperion.

Jesus.

7 YEARS?!?!?!?!?!

I can't even think about it....what a book!!!! eek!

Michael Rabattino

04-26-2002, 06:58 PM

Bump.

I want someone to comment on the Priest's tale, but also, what the fuck is up with that sex scene in The Soldier's Story?

Christ.

It's good, though...

Blofeld

04-26-2002, 07:15 PM

The Priest's Tale is, indeed, extremely effecting ... just wait til you see how that spins out in the Endymion books.

The Soldier's Tale ... how to explain that to you ... Um ... when pressed to a place where death has been entirely possible, the desire to affirm life can lead to extremely ... um ... intense emotions.

Michael Rabattino

04-26-2002, 07:50 PM

Blofeld (aka No Name Given):

The Soldier's Tale ... how to explain that to you ... Um ... when pressed to a place where death has been entirely possible, the desire to affirm life can lead to extremely ... um ... intense emotions.Yeah, that's sorta what I took from it. For a minute I thought it was out of place and all, but yeah, I guess the emotions got the best of them both and they just proceeded to make love on a corpse.