books the best science fiction books of all time?

Dune is one of the best universe-building series, covering tens of thousands of years, not to mention the millions of years of history prior to the first novel.

That reminds me of another of my favourites - Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon. Written in 1930, it concerns the evolution of humans' succeeding 18 species of descendents over billions of years. Admittedly he gets the 20th century pretty wrong but it's a fascinating novel.

  On 12/16/2015 at 11:44 PM, bronchuseven said:

Dune is one of the best universe-building series, covering tens of thousands of years, not to mention the millions of years of history prior to the first novel.

 

That reminds me of another of my favourites - Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon. Written in 1930, it concerns the evolution of humans' succeeding 18 species of descendents over billions of years. Admittedly he gets the 20th century pretty wrong but it's a fascinating novel.

Stapledon is an alumni of University of Liverpool. Brilliant book, though it's been a while since I read Last and First Men. The last one I read by him was Sirius - animal psychology experiment in rural England. Though Flowers for Algernon is my favourite book on the anthropomorphic subject.

Lessing's Shikasta books were written in a similar fashion transcending time and laying it all out for you as observational philisophical fiction. Science-fiction is a very strict term for these writers though, as they offer so much more, Vonnegut's works got labelled sci-fi also in the same way.

My personal favourite is Stand on Zanzibar by Brunner. The Chad Mulligan quotes are so funny, each one is like finding a chinese fortune cookie in your daily life or consulting Japanese fortune sticks. He comes across as a spiritual hobo truth seeker. Defo recommended.

I'm gonna nominate William Gibson's Pattern Recognition

It came out 20 years after Neuromancer

and one of the themes of the novel all the ways the world resembles (or doesn't resemble) Neuromancer

  On 12/17/2015 at 12:32 AM, LimpyLoo said:

I'm gonna nominate William Gibson's Pattern Recognition

Theodoridis' Pattern Recognition is the bane of my existence right now

The Road is really good too, and packed with commentary on our modern society.

Oryx & Crake, The Handmaid's Tale both by Margaret Atwood

Ship of Fools by Richard Russo

I've seen White Noise by Don Delillo referred to as SF, so sure, why not?

  On 12/17/2015 at 7:18 AM, Rubin Farr said:

The Road is really good too, and packed with commentary on our modern society.

The prose is achingly beautiful.

I had butterflies in my stomach the whole time I was reading it.

Re-reading Bruce Sterling's Schismatrix. Good cyberpunky sci-fi with political intrigues and aliens. There is so much more sci-fi I need to read (especially the classics), but time and energy.

  On 12/16/2015 at 3:33 AM, doublename said:

I'll add/second Inverted World by Christopher Priest.

 

 

  On 12/16/2015 at 12:35 AM, chaosmachine said:

Bump because Christmas.

 

Anyone reading/read Seveneves? I keep falling asleep listening to the first chapter (same thing happened with Anathem, eventually I got into it and it was great).

I quit Seveneves pretty early on. I also really enjoyed Anathem, but I think I'm done with NS after this and Reamde.

I have yet to read Seveneves but I quite enjoyed Anathem, and I know I read Reamde but fail to remember anything of significance from it.

Just no damn time to read for pleasure anymore.

Seveneves has spergy orbital mechanics for the first half. You know how NS gets when he gets into something, you get it all with no editing. Still a good read, although the latter half seemed a bit rushed and less dense than the first. Liked the dread of the first part, though.

I'm dying to read the new WG about a performance artist in the post-apocalyptic future.

(But I have trouble concentrating on reading lately, so probably won't...)

  On 12/17/2015 at 6:44 PM, azatoth said:

Seveneves has spergy orbital mechanics for the first half. You know how NS gets when he gets into something, you get it all with no editing. Still a good read, although the latter half seemed a bit rushed and less dense than the first. Liked the dread of the first part, though.

I'm excited to read it now - I love that about him - he just goes full braindump, but in usually well-written prose.