Sci-Fi books that got you to go 'wow'

[Assenpfeffer]

Kim Stanley Robinson's "Mars" series.

Yeah. Several friends to whom I've reccommended this series have reported problems getting through it. Very dry, they say, and I see what they're talking about; Robinson goes on for a ten-page discussion of Martian soil chemistry at one point, for example.

But I myself tore through them. Utterly facinating and compelling storytelling.

Orwell's 1984, which I read in high school, was a "wow" book for me. Limiting the discussion to strictly "near" future SF, I can't think of a whole lot offhand, since my tastes run toward "classy" space opera like Dan Simmons' Hyperion and its sequels, the Brin Uplift stuff, and Greg Benford's Galactic Center cooks.

However, I can squeeze in a plug for The Forever War, which starts in the near future. It's most interesting, nowadays, when read in conscious comparison to Heinlein's Starship Troopers, which predates it by about 20 years, but which has aged much, much better - TFW is really dated.

For that matter, a lot of Heinlein's stuff fits the parameters. I particularly reccommend Methuselah's Children and its ultimate continuations in Time Enough For Love and To Sail Beyond the Sunset, which is my personal favoroite Heinlein book. The Number of the Beast brings together a lot of the threads in Heinlein's various future histories and is a lot of fun.

Gibson's Neuromancer is a classic and is one of those books that anyone who is serious about SF should read.

Ender's Game is a good book but the numerous sequels pound the same keys. Card is hit-or-miss for me - his Homecoming series started out fantastic only to completely collapse in the final book.

Just to be a jerk, and knowing that they don't meet darkfire's limitations, I'm going to throw out plugs for Dune, which everyone really needs to make the effort to read, and Roger Zelazny's brilliant Lord of Light, which I seem to be plugging a lot lately, but which is just one of the best books I've ever read.

 

[Darkfire]

Ah, so many potentially good books and so little money, time isn;t an issue, I can always find time for a good book

Everyone seems to know about Dune, some of us have even read it

However, how many of you have read through the rest of the series? I've battled to get the whole thing, but I've read Children of Dune and the God Emperor of Dune, and enjoyed both. Awesome socialogical approach to humanity in the series so far, is it worth hunting down the rest?

 

[Ziona]

I would say almost anything by Octavia E. Butler, but especially:
Bloodchild & Other Stories
and the Lilith's Brood series, (Dawn, Adulthood Rites & Imago).

Although if you're looking for something a bit on the disturbing side, check out Parable of the Sower.

Other than that, WE by Yevgeny Zamyatin
and Solaris by Stanislaw Lem.

 

[reddist]

On Dune:

I've read them all, several times actually. I like them, and I find the last two to be more similar to the first, as far as style goes, than the ones in the middle. I was a little disappointed with the end of Chapterhouse, though.

However, my issues may be remedied in the not-too-distant-future. Seems a "Dune 7" book is being talked about, concerning the events that take place after Frank's original series.

For those intereseted: http://www.dunenovels.com/

The "prelude" books are alright. I'm reading them, but at times I think they try a little too hard. Still, if you liked the original series, they do use a lot of the same characters and cover a lot of the material alluded to by the first books.

I think its funny that of all the characters and the vast amounts of time covered in the books, Duncan Idaho is in all of them. Tells you something about Herbert's values and veiw point, I think.

There's lots of nifty little "sound bites" in those books. I've got a list of most of them I made when I was younger, less cynical, and more easily influenced.

If you haven't heard, SCI Fi channel is doing Children of Dune sometime in March.


Stepping off my soap box,

-Reddist

 

[Femerus the Gnecro]

Foundation - asimov

Collected short stories 1 & 2 - asimov

2001, 2010 - clarke

Neuromancer - gibson

snow crash - stephenson (anyone else pick this up in a copy of Spectre VR?)

diamond age - stephenson

Dune - herbert

martian chronicles - bradbury

have spacesuit will travel - heinlien (1st scifi book I ever read)

the veldt - bradbury

-F

 

[Asmo]

I really enjoyed the Gap saga by Stephen R. Donaldson.
Very dark and gritty, even more than Tomas Covenant, the Unbeliver story (if that´s possible).
The Gap series contains 5 books:
1: The Gap into conflict: The real story
2: The Gap into vision: Forbidden knowledge
3: The Gap into power: A dark and hungry god arises
4: The Gap into madness: Chaos and order
5: The Gap into ruin: This day all gods die

Every fan of SciFi should read this,exellent stuff.

Asmo

 

[Someone]

Pilot Pirx´s tales (not sure if that is it´s name in english) by Stanislaw Lem are really good.

 

[Richards]

I'll throw in Stephen Gould's books: Jumper, The Wild Side, Helm, and Blind Waves. Of them, I really enjoyed Jumper the most. His others are still good reads, but nowhere near as good, in my own opinion.

Johnathan

 

[theT0rmented]

I'll add Robert J. Sawyer to the list. Calculating God was good, and Hominids was *really good*. Both take place in the current times (a la end 1990s).

 

[KChagga]

The book Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison. Its the book that they made the movie Soylent Green from. And they make soylent green from