What's your favourite science fiction book?

[Flying_Monkey]

" Have Space Suit, Will Travel" by Heinlein about a boy who wins a used spacesuit in a soap competition. Great book!

That may have been my first too - can't quite remember.

Frederick Pohl's 'The tunnel under the world' remains one of my favourite ever SF short-stories.

 

[rh100]

My definition of Science Fiction :-

"A fantasy story based on speculative scientific and technological developments"

Let's look back at what I wrote.

The old stuff I quoted from referred to technologies that were NOT everyday knowledge for the periodical setting.

In my mind, describing a sword, a METAL instrument of violence, when Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden of Eden is a reference to a technology mankind did not have. And what is a sword doing there if not made by man and God is a God of peace?

Why is this not Science Fiction?

Brings Clarkes third law to mind:

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic

 

[mikeitup]

+1 for:

Dune,
Magician,
H G Wells,
Wyndham,
Verne,
Haldeman,


also recommednd David Gerrold's "War Against the Chtorr" series. Excellent (if difficult to get hold of them all)

 

[661-Pete]

Another Arthur C Clarke - Fountains of Paradise. Storyline is a bit disjointed and characterization could be better, but I love it mainly because I so want it to be true. At least, more true than any sort of conventional space story. And the way Clarke develops his grand ideas in the grand manner! (remember that it was he who 'invented' the idea of the geosynchronous satellite). The ending - I mean the very last line of the story - is excellent: probably the best last line I've ever come across.

 

[jimboalee]

1. they did have metal swords when the book was written;
2. the god of the Old Testament is not a god of peace;
3. references to powers beyond people's comprehension are to divine powers not technological ones.

It's mythology / religion - stories of origin and the relationship of humankind with the unseen powers that supposedly created us. Some SF is mythic, but mythology is not SF. Religion and myth also serve as cultural unifiers - they are believed and form a shared basis for social norms; they are not just creative writing. When you confuse this you get Scientology - which really is SF as religion...

Again, you are just making the mistake of comparing things that look superficially similar, rather like the people who think that ancient pictorgrams represent aliens because they look a bit like common contemporary depictions of space-men.

1. OK, so what was it that the writers referred to as a 'Sword'?
2. OK, he ? wiped out a city, and then all but Noah and family.
3. OK, rh100 stole my words.


I consider that book as man's interpretation of stories passed down through the generations. Anything that could not be explained with reason, logic or medical knowledge of the day was accounted for by being classified as, as you say, 'devine'.

To me, it's one of the best reads. Much better than modern day SF.

 

[postman]

The New Labour book of promises.

It's a fairy story i think.

 

[tdr1nka]

Reading fiction books.

"Life's bad enough as it is without trying to invent any more of it."

You are Marvin the paranoid android and I claim my £5.

 

[jonesy]

What was the book that got you into reading science fiction?
...

I think the first sci-fi I read was Asimov's Foundation Trilogy. Then some Le Guin. City of Illusions I think.

I've also read all the later Foundation books, but didn't like them as much; though Forward the Foundation did start to bring back the feeling of the earlier ones. I think the way he combined the Foundation and Robot story lines, and Gaia, didn't really work convincingly, as I don't think he had this in mind at all when he wrote the originals, and I felt the more contrived links (e.g. the Mule turning out to be a renegade Gaian, instead of a mutant; Hari Seldon getting his ideas from R. Daneel Olivaw etc) undermined the original stories.

 

[jonesy]

...

But seriously - six pages into this thread, and no mention of 'Dune'? Kull wahad!

I've read them all up to Chapter House, but not the more recent follow-ons co-written by his son (I think). I liked them all, but (as is so common with sequels) while he kept introducing some great ideas all the way through I don't think the later ones live up to the first, even though Heretics and Chapter House were better than God Emperor imo. I suppose once you've created an imaginary world it is much harder to come up with new and interesting ideas to put in it. And I think he got a bit obsessed with sex in his old age...

 

[jonesy]

Ender's Game .... Orson Scott Card

I'd not heard of Orson Scott Card, but saw a good review in one of the papers of Enders Game and Speaker for the Dead shortly after they were first published, so I got them and thoroughly enjoyed them. Didn't like Xenocide as much, and haven't read any of his other stories set in the Enders Game world (apparently there are rather a lot). I have read some of his other books though, of which Songmaster stands out, a story I didn't like the idea of from the description on the cover but found enthralling once I'd started it.

 

[Yellow Fang]

I read most of the Dune books. There were six of them IIRC. I read some of Frank Herbert's other books too. He seemed to have two big themes: the genetic improvement of humanity, and virtual telepathy by reading body language. Like quite a few SF writers, I suspected his interest in genetics was somewhat idealogically unsound, bordering on eugenics. The last book of his that I read was about a man whose wife was killed by the IRA, who was so embittered that he developed a disease that would only kill women. At the time I hated anything that dramatised the IRA, and it was such a nasty idea anyway that I stopped reading him.

 

[Yellow Fang]

Any Michael Crichton fans? Quite an unscrupulous and unpleasant man IMHO, but I gather his earlier work was good.

 

[al1]

Don`t think he has been mentioned but try Clifford Simak - All Flesh is Grass, Way Station and others

 

[rh100]

I read most of the Dune books. There were six of them IIRC. I read some of Frank Herbert's other books too. He seemed to have two big themes: the genetic improvement of humanity, and virtual telepathy by reading body language. Like quite a few SF writers, I suspected his interest in genetics was somewhat idealogically unsound, bordering on eugenics. The last book of his that I read was about a man whose wife was killed by the IRA, who was so embittered that he developed a disease that would only kill women. At the time I hated anything that dramatised the IRA, and it was such a nasty idea anyway that I stopped reading him.

It's called The White Plague, was really not very good.

 

[MacB]

It's called The White Plague, was really not very good.

Shockingly bad for him, this was on the shelves in our holiday villa and I was very glad I hadn't bought it.