[Wolery]

OK, I'm really just a Star Wars nut with a taste for alternate history. I've read precious little sci-fi novels. And having read a synopsis of the Forever War, I will never be it either. Besides that, what are the 25 best novels in the genre? I'm espeically partial to classics like Verne and Wells, but I'm open to suggestions.

Help a fellow out?

[azidhak]

25? Ok I'll try, only from things I've read:

Frank Herbert: Dune
Isaac Asimov: Foundation (read the original trilogy with Foundation & Empire and Second Foundation)
Philip K. Dick: at least one book and that might as well be The Game Players of Titan.
Orson Scott Card: Ender's Game
Dan Simmons: Hyperion (the whole tetralogy is worth reading IMHO)
Kurt Vonnegut: Slaughterhouse 5
Kim Stanley Robinson: Red Mars
William Gibson: Neuromancer
Douglas Adams: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Greg Bear: Blood Music
Ian M. Banks: The Algebraist
Peter F. Hamilton The Night's Dawn trilogy (Or his Confederacy series, all epic space opera)
Neal Stephenson: Snow Crash
Ken Macleod: The Star Fraction
Alastair Reynolds: Chasm City
Richard K. Morgan: Altered Carbon
China Miéville: Perdido Street Station
Neal Asher: Line of Polity
Charles Stross: Singularity Sky
Karl Schroeder: Ventus
Jon Courtenay Grimwood: Stamping Butterflies

Ok with trilogies and series, you have a lot more than 25 books there. ;)

[Glelas]

1 Frank Herbert Dune
2 Orson Scott Card Ender's Game
3 Isaac Asimov Foundation
4 Douglas Adams Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy
5 George Orwell 1984
6 Robert A Heinlein Stranger in a Strange Land
7 Ray Bradbury Fahrenheit 451
8 Isaac Asimov I, Robot
9 William Gibson Neuromancer
10 Larry Niven Ringworld
11 Arthur C Clarke 2001: A Space Odyssey
12 Robert A Heinlein Starship Troopers
13 Aldous Huxley Brave New World
14 Philip K Dick Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
15 H G Wells The Time Machine
16 Arthur C Clarke Rendezvous With Rama
17 Robert A Heinlein The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
18 H G Wells The War of the Worlds
19 Dan Simmons Hyperion
20 Arthur C Clarke Childhood's End

[Ouroboros]

In no particular order, here are some recommendations off the top of my head. It's not a 'best of the genre' survey, more a personal top 25 of stuff which really stuck with me.

1 Starship Troopers - Robert Heinlein
2 Earth Abides - George Stewart
3 The Time Ships - Stephen Baxter (Particularly if you liked Wells' work)
4 Armor - John Steakley
5 I am Legend - Richard Matheson
6 Behond the Man - Michael Moorcock
7 The world turned upside down - Jim Baen, Eric Flint & David Drake (anth.)
8 1632 - Eric Flint
9 The Complete Hammer's Slammers vol. 1 - David Drake
10 Mindstar Rising - Peter F. Hamilton
11 Altered Carbon - Richard Morgan
12 Wasp - Eric Russell
13 A hymn before battle - John Ringo
14 Lord of Light - Roger Zelazney
15 Cordelia's Honor - Lois McMaster Bujold
16 The stars my destination - Alfred Bester
17 Dune - Frank Herbert
18 And some will not die - Algys Budrys
19 Stand on Zanzibar - John Brunner
20 Flowers for Algenon - Daniel Keyes
21 The Kraken Wakes - John Wyndham
22 Cities in flight - James Blish
23 Ranks of bronze - David Drake
24 Fallen Dragon - Peter F. Hamilton
25 The Skinner - Neal Asher

[The Master™]

Orson Scott Card - Ender's Game
Douglas Adams - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Greg Bear - Eon
Neal Stephenson - Snow Crash
Richard Morgan - Altered Carbon
Robert A Heinlein - Starship Troopers
Larry Niven - Ringworld
Aldous Huxley - Brave New World
Philip K Dick - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Richard Matheson - I am Legend
Samuel R Delaney - Nova
Joe Haldeman - Forever War
Alfred Bester - The Demolished Man
Sheri Tepper - Grass
Harry Harrison - The Stainless Steel Rat

[Mice9]

There is a reccomendations link that remains on the first page of the threads indefinitely:
http://www.sffworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4986

If you have already looked through this you can also use the "Search" button on the top of the frame. One suggestion I had made in the recent past is for newer folks to try short stories. I own a collection titled "The World Treasury of Science Fiction" compiled by David G. Hartwell 1989, and it includes people like Robert A. Heinlein, Larry Niven, Kurt Vonnegut, Arthur C. Clarke, Philip K. Dick and so on. Hartwell puts out his anthologies on a regular basis, and The New York Times has been putting out collections of SciFi short stories for a few decades now. The trick is to find a collection with writers who have done plenty of both (short stories and novels). Then you can get a taste for the writers you like without having to read through an entire novel only to be dissapointed. ;)

[Colonel Worf]

My personal favorites:

1. Dune - Frank Herbert
2. Dune Messiah - Frank Herbert
3. Children of Dune - Frank Herbert
4. The Dark Beyond the Stars - Frank M. Robinson
5. Doomsday Book - Connie Willis
6. The Martian Chronicles - Ray Bradbury
7. Mars - Ben Bova
8. As On a Darkling Plain - Ben Bova
9. Orion - Ben Bova
10. Return to Mars - Ben Bova
11. Robert Heinlein - Starship Troopers
12. Darwinia - Robert Charles Wilson (alternate history)
13. Insomnia - Stephen King (more sci-fi than horror, I swear)
14. Raft - Stephen Baxter
15. Timelike Infinity - Stephen Baxter
16. The Descent - Jeff Long

I could go on and on...

[cgw]

SciFi 25

Dune - Herbert
Lord of Light – Zelazny
Doorways in the Sand – Zelazny
A Fire Upon the Deep, Vernor Vinge
Hyperion, Dan Simmons
Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
Startide Rising, David Brin
Foundation Trilogy – Asimov
Mirror Dance, Lois McMaster Bujold
Ringworld, Larry Niven

'The Forever War' - Haldeman
The Warrior’s Apprentice - , Lois McMaster Bujold (read before other Bujold)
Ringworld, Larry Niven
Integral Trees – Larry Niven
To Your Scattered Bodies Go – Farmer
Hominids - Sawyer
The Mote in Gods Eye - Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
The Uplift War – Brin
This Immortal - Zelazny
Altered Carbon – Morgan

The Wanderer – Lieber
The Way Station – Simak
Speaker for the Dead – Card
The Forever Peace – Haldeman
To Say Nothing of the Dog - Willis

[Ouroboros]

I like going through the lists provided so far and seeing the quirky choices that pop up.

Almost everyone has included some of the 'big dawgs' of the genre, like Herbert's 'Dune', which have crossover appeal and are beloved of critics, hacks and casual readers alike.

It's the unusual picks that are interesting.

In my own list, I included Lois McMaster Bujold's 'Cordelia's Honor' because, quite simply, it has the best female protagonist I've ever come across, and is an incredibly touching novel.

There are a few choices in the other lists which I haven't even come across before- I'll have to look into them.

[US_TOML]

Artemis Fowl is great.
It may look like a kids book, but it's really good.