Classic Sci fi / fantasy

PADRAGON

Hello all,
i'm looking for recommendations.
Theres a bewildering choice of books out there.
What i'd like to do is fill in the gaps in my
knowledge of the 'classics'

Stand alone one offs please,from any time.

Thanks in advance.:D

Dades

Recently recommended Childhood's End (Arthur C. Clarke) to another poster. Fits this category!

Also maybe Ringworld (Larry Niven) and The Forever War (Joe Haldemann).

Enjoy.

I'd back up those recommendations. I went through a lot of the "sci-fi masterworks" collection when I was getting back into reading too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SF_Masterworks

I love "The stars my destination"

PADRAGON

Dades wrote: »

Recently recommended Childhood's End (Arthur C. Clarke) to another poster. Fits this category!

Also maybe Ringworld (Larry Niven) and The Forever War (Joe Haldemann).

Enjoy.

Thanks Dades,i've read the first two loved them.
Thats exactly the kind of thing i'm looking for.
The Forever War is going on my list.

pH

I'm wondering what classic Sci-Fi ages well, I read an awful lot over the years, much of it pulpy (I really enjoyed Battlefield Earth for example!), the Niven/Pournelle stuff, Asimov, Heinlein, Vonnegut etc, but I wonder has it all been "done better" in later years by Hamilton, Reynolds, Banks, Stross, Stephenson etc? (I'm *not* dissing anyone's love of this classic SF, just wondering if it's aged well)

One could do worse than trying to get hold of every Hugo and Nebula winner (or read all the nominations as well!)

http://www.worldswithoutend.com/books_hugo_index.asp
http://www.worldswithoutend.com/books_nebula_index.asp

For example I loved the '73 winner The Gods Themselves but I've never reall liked Philip Jose Farmer's stuff (winner in '72)

One other thing - all the John Wyndam books written in the 1950s are great.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wyndham

mcgovern

I'd second the recommendation for the SF Masterworks, I've been working through them gradually.

pH wrote: »

I'm wondering what classic Sci-Fi ages well, I read an awful lot over the years, much of it pulpy (I really enjoyed Battlefield Earth for example!), the Niven/Pournelle stuff, Asimov, Heinlein, Vonnegut etc, but I wonder has it all been "done better" in later years by Hamilton, Reynolds, Banks, Stross, Stephenson etc? (I'm *not* dissing anyone's love of this classic SF, just wondering if it's aged well)

One could do worse than trying to get hold of every Hugo and Nebula winner (or read all the nominations as well!)

http://www.worldswithoutend.com/books_hugo_index.asp
http://www.worldswithoutend.com/books_nebula_index.asp

For example I loved the '73 winner The Gods Themselves but I've never reall liked Philip Jose Farmer's stuff (winner in '72)

One other thing - all the John Wyndam books written in the 1950s are great.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wyndham

From the SF Masterworks, I think Benford, Bester and others are still relevant and might interest you. Generally, I find at least, that the more character driven authors (though Benford wouldn't fit into this) stay more relevant than ones that focus heavily on the science aspect (like alot of the new age authors you mention do). Having said that, the only ones from the series whose age I felt detracted from the books, was Stapledon's work, and that's from the 30s so...

Goldstein

baz8080 wrote: »

I love "The stars my destination"

My all time favourite book

Bester was a singular genious. Unbelieveably his "The Demolished Man" is right up there with it (The first ever Hugo winner). I've never found anyone else who can write with such "pick you up and jump off a building" intensity. Can't think of another way to put it.

I'd recommend some of the other apexes of military sci-fi classics -

"Armor" by John Steakley
"Starship Troopers" by Heinlein (Completely disregard the movie)
And the already mentioned "The Forever War" by Joe Haldeman
All broadly similarly themed (All feature some form of biosuit for instance) but each comes from a completely different angle and I'd say all 3 are must-reads.

Some others that come immediately to mind are:
"Gateway" by Pohl
"The War of the Worlds" & "The First Men in the Moon" by H.G. Welles
"Mission of Gravity" by Hal Clement
"The City and The Stars", "Rendezvous with Rama" & "A Fall of Moondust" by Clarke.
"The End of Eternity" by Asimov
"Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card

The big 3 dystopians:
"Nineteen Eighty-Four" (2nd favourite book of all time)
"Fahrenheit 451"
"Brave New World" (Not quite as good as the other 2 after half distance for me)

PADRAGON

One could do worse than trying to get hold of every Hugo and Nebula winner (or read all the nominations as well!)

http://www.worldswithoutend.com/books_hugo_index.asp
http://www.worldswithoutend.com/books_nebula_index.asp

For example I loved the '73 winner The Gods Themselves but I've never reall liked Philip Jose Farmer's stuff (winner in '72)

One other thing - all the John Wyndam books written in the 1950s are great.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wyndham[/QUOTE]

That's a great idea,as i said i'm trying to narrow it down.
I dont have the money or the time to read everything (who does:()
I did'nt like Farmer either,always thought i was missing the point.
Could have been my own fault,maybe there was'nt one.
Anyway thanks for that.

PADRAGON

Goldstein wrote: »

My all time favourite book

Bester was a singular genious. Unbelieveably his "The Demolished Man" is right up there with it (The first ever Hugo winner). I've never found anyone else who can write with such "pick you up and jump off a building" intensity. Can't think of another way to put it.

I'd recommend some of the other apexes of military sci-fi classics -

"Armor" by John Steakley
"Starship Troopers" by Heinlein (Completely disregard the movie)
And the already mentioned "The Forever War" by Joe Haldeman
All broadly similarly themed (All feature some form of biosuit for instance) but each comes from a completely different angle and I'd say all 3 are must-reads.

Some others that come immediately to mind are:
"Gateway" by Pohl
"The War of the Worlds" & "The First Men in the Moon" by H.G. Welles
"Mission of Gravity" by Hal Clement
"The City and The Stars", "Rendezvous with Rama" & "A Fall of Moondust" by Clarke.
"The End of Eternity" by Asimov
"Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card

The big 3 dystopians:
"Nineteen Eighty-Four" (2nd favourite book of all time)
"Fahrenheit 451"
"Brave New World" (Not quite as good as the other 2 after half distance for me)

Great stuff !!!
Starship Troopers must be like The Running Man by Stephen King,
great book but the film makes you want to puke.

Goldstein

FAO anyone looking for the Hugo, Nebula & Locus award winners in a single list, this might save you some time:

I can throw up the excel file if anyone wants it but it should copy & paste ok.

Spent the last few years collecting them myself. Was good fun finding nice copies of some of the older ones. Have read about 1/3 of them to date but am still all set for a few years yet

Some nice suggestions here, I think I'll be adding some of them to the twenty or so books on my todo shelf

Trojan

Here's a few suggestions:

The Caves of Steel - Isaac Asimov (robots/first Elijah Baley SF-crime novel)
The Weapon Shops of Isher - A. E. Van Gogt (dated but very representative of 50s sf)
Starman Jones - Robert A. Heinlein (good example of classic Heinlein, recommend any of his work)
A Fall of Moondust - Arthur C. Clarke (written later but classic standalone sf)
The Martian Chronicles - Ray Bradbury (had to include a Bradbury)

Legends, all. They sure don't make 'em like they used to!

matrim

It hasn't been specifically mentioned but you could throw in some Philip K. Dick stuff too.

I checked the SF Masterworks list and he's on it about 14 times so you've a good choice there

Shryke

The Stars My Destination is very good. So is Dick, I'd try Ubik, The Man In the High Castle or A Scanner Darkly to gauge him.
I really liked Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany.
All of these are part of the SF Masterworks collection. You're pretty safe with any of them.

Johnny Storm

Shryke wrote: »

So is Dick, I'd try Ubik, The Man In the High Castle or A Scanner Darkly to gauge him.
.

Now yer talking
Philip K Dick is the Jimi Hendrix of SF writers
Shryke has picked out his very best IMHO. Be warned that Scanner Darkly is pretty dark and not to everyones taste.
Other not-to-be missed classics by PKD are:-

• Clans of the Alphane Moon,
• Flow my tears the policeman said,
• Martian Time-Slip
• Do Androids dream of electric sheep? (Bladerunner)
• The Three stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.
• We Can build you
• The Golden Man and The Preserving Machine (short stories)

pljudge321

Dades wrote: »

Recently recommended Childhood's End (Arthur C. Clarke) to another poster. Fits this category!

I'm only half way through this because I got waylaid by The Name of the Wind and my reading pace seems to have dropped considerably but its damn good so far.

Dades

PADRAGON wrote: »

Great stuff !!!
Starship Troopers must be like The Running Man by Stephen King,
great book but the film makes you want to puke.

Man, I love that movie! It's the first film I ever went to see twice in the cinema.
I also loved the book... but I totally appreciate they are different mediums with different intentions.

ALSO - I just noticed (unless I missed it) nobody has mentioned Dune. Classic sci-fi and fantasy in one.

I really enjoyed "A canticle for leibowitz" and "earth abides", both are post-apocalyptic style sci-fi.

"Flowers for algernon" is also a book that I'd highly recommend.

baalthor

mcgovern wrote: »

I'd second the recommendation for the SF Masterworks, I've been working through them gradually.




From the SF Masterworks, I think Benford, Bester and others are still relevant and might interest you. Generally, I find at least, that the more character driven authors (though Benford wouldn't fit into this) stay more relevant than ones that focus heavily on the science aspect (like alot of the new age authors you mention do). Having said that, the only ones from the series whose age I felt detracted from the books, was Stapledon's work, and that's from the 30s so...

Stapledon's books are amazing, the OP should add "Last and First Men" to their list.

baalthor

baalthor wrote: »

Stapledon's books are amazing, the OP should add "Last and First Men" to their list.

Last and First Men is undoubtedly a great work but it started to drag for me towards the end. Starmaker is still on my to-read list though.

Johnny Storm

How about William Gibson's early real-SF books?
Neuromancer
Count Zero
MonaLisa Overdrive
Burning Chrome (short stories)

(unquestionably Neuromancer is a classic - redefined the genre, won the Nebula, Hugo and PKD awards)

katarin

I really liked Philip K. Dick's book of short stories, We Can Remember it For You, Wholesale. I think it's his Vol II short stories, but it was the first I read and still my favourite PKD and because it's only short stories, its a good place to start.

Black Sheep

In terms of readily-available reading lists for SF, I think the SF Masterworks back-catalouge is hard to beat, as others have obviously already said.

To that I'd add that a good anthology can be excellent. My favourite is 'The World Turned Upside Down' from Baen. It's a collection picked by Jim Baen (RIP) and Eric Flint of stories that they read as kids/younger men and which made them lifelong SF fans. There are some obvious genre classics in there from established greats like Heinlein, and then there are some interesting 'one hit wonders' and stories from lesser-known figures.

http://www.sfrevu.com/php/Review-id.php?id=4197

PADRAGON

Thanks to every poster.
Ive just finished Consider Phlebas.
Reading Johnathan Strange and Mr Norrell
at the minute with A Scanner Darkly and
Game Of Thrones lined up after that.

Lots of adventures ahead.

Cheers !

beano345

"dune" by frank herbert

"enders game" by Orson Scott Card

Rubecula

The very first sci fi story I read was a book in the school library back in the 1960's (Yes I am an old sod) Anyway it was aimed at kids (obviously) but it got my interest and introduced me to the genre. To this day I can not remember the author for certain (I think it was E C Elliot but I may be wrong)

The book was called "Kemlo and the Gravity Rays" I have no idea if it is part of a series or whatever, but it is a book I remember all this time later.

It might interest you, I am not sure.

pH

Rubecula wrote: »

The very first sci fi story I read was a book in the school library back in the 1960's (Yes I am an old sod) Anyway it was aimed at kids (obviously) but it got my interest and introduced me to the genre. To this day I can not remember the author for certain (I think it was E C Elliot but I may be wrong)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kemlo


http://www.collectingbooksandmagazines.com/kemlo.html

Johnny Storm

Rubecula wrote: »

The very first sci fi story I read was a book in the school library back in the 1960's (Yes I am an old sod) Anyway it was aimed at kids (obviously) but it got my interest and introduced me to the genre. To this day I can not remember the author for certain (I think it was E C Elliot but I may be wrong)


The book was called "Kemlo and the Gravity Rays" I have no idea if it is part of a series or whatever, but it is a book I remember all this time later.

It might interest you, I am not sure.

Wow!
I read and enjoyed some of those books too. We must be of a similar vintage! Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

Rubecula

pH wrote: »

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kemlo


http://www.collectingbooksandmagazines.com/kemlo.html

Johnny Storm wrote: »

Wow!
I read and enjoyed some of those books too. We must be of a similar vintage! Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

Thanks guys and I was happy to see I got the author right too. Those Kemlo books have a lot to answer for. I still love the genre and indeed I write little things for myself. Sad as I am:pac: