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I would have to go with anything by Alfred Bester. I really can't pick between "The Stars My Destination" or "The Demolished Man". Wikipedia has a pretty decent rundown of both stories. I would never have run into him, though, if I hadn't read that that's how the Psi Cop character Alfred Bester got his name.

Iain M. Banks' SciFi stuff is realy great.
For in interesting read you should try Feersum Endjinn. It's written phonetically so it's hard to start but it's realy something once you get into it.

"Hammer's Slammers" - David Drake

Hover tanks, plasma cannons, unique characters, social commentary - it's all good.

I've read many of the books presented and agree with most of the sentiment. Except I think the first three books of Dune should be read, not just the first one (after that though it does kinda go downhill).

I'd like to suggest something a bit more obscure: Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun series (4 books, usually sold in two volumes). While a tad wordy and hard to grasp at first, I'd still rank it as probably my favorite sci-fi story. The Hugo the series garnered was well deserved.

BotNS is essentially a future earth (very future, as in sun is about to go dormant future), doom and gloom type sci-fi but spun into more of a fantasy tale (or even classic lit). Lots of allegories to watch out for and some intriguing uses of archaic language to describe sci-fi creatures and concepts (very reminiscint of 40k in this regard).

The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester, which won the first Hugo award. It is essentially a murder mystery in a science fiction genre, but handles telepathy in typeface in an ingenious fashion, and answers the question: how do you murder someone when a fraction of humanity can read minds?

Well I'll be a little different.

Paris 1919 - Margaret MacMillan

Exalt to Mithrax. Paris 1919 was 20 bucks well spent.

Another recommendation is To the Last Man, by Jeff Shaara. I've always been interested in World War One, and this book kind of came out of nowhere for me. It isn't as good as Shaara's Gone for Soldiers, but if you're a fan of the subject matter, TtLM is quite a read.

Posted By Hellfury on 05/02/2007 12:37 PM
Surely you dont intend on recommending a C.S.Goto book as mandatory reading other than in jest, do you?

Of course not.  I'm recommending Jester's post, not the book he's posting about.

Actually, I think everyone should try to read a C.S. Goto book, at least once. As a sort of negative standard.

Or maybe as an example of encouragement- "See, this dreck got published- and your fanfic is much better than this! There is still hope, submit your manuscript to BL, they'll print anything!"

On topic, I would recommend the Barrayar series by Lois McMaster Bujold. And I suggest you start with Cordelia's Honor, which is a compilation of the first two novels in the series.

Bujold has a wonderful way with characterization, the effect of technology on cultures, and occasionally some truly Byzantine plots.

My recommendation would be the Revelation Space series of books by Alistair Reynolds (Chasm City, Revelation Space, Redemption Ark, Absolution Gap and Galactic North). The characters themselves may be on the flat side, but you cannot beat his vision of the "grim darkness of the far future".

Hive mind humans, gothic astronauts and nanotechnology gone mad... oh, and no FTL...

Posted By dienekes96 on 05/02/2007 12:17 PM

You need to read more sci-fi.  Start with Arthur C. Clarke and Robert Heinlein.  I readily admit Herbert is a titan of the genre, and most of the genre is crap (thank Star Wars for polluting science fiction with too much fantasy).

In defense of Sci Fi, it also has to be remembered that a lot of classic 'sci-fi" is now just "fi."  Jules Verne, HG Wells. These are real classics, but many of them are viewed as pure fiction now as times have changed.

James Blish.

I lot of my choices have already been mentioned. Dune, Starship Troopers (plus The Moon is a Harsh Mistress), LotR, Gates of Fire, a Game of Thrones (et al).

For Sci-fi, no one's mentioned Snow Crash, by Neil Stephenson. Still an excellent cyberpunk story and still a disturbingly plausible vision of where the US could go, it's just PACKED full of cool ideas, characters, scenes and dialogue. It's also a wonderful introduction to his work, which will enable you (if you choose) to muster the morale to tackle his longer Cryptonomicon and massive Baroque Cycle (Quicksilver/The Confusion/The System of the World). Love it.

Second place goes to Armor, by John Steakley. Fred Saberhagen and John Steakley were both inspired by Starship Troopers, and by the fact that Heinlein really can't write action scenes. Steakley's book has a superficially similar setting and concept, and just takes it in an utterly different direction. Fan-tastic. I have read both this and ST over and over many times.

For fantasy, The Deed of Paksennarion (Sheepfarmer's Daughter, Divided Allegiance, Oath of Gold). Just read it. The perfect vision of what a Paladin is. Excellent world-building. The first book gives you one of the only realistic views you'll find of what it would be like to be a mercenary in a fairly low-magic fantasy world.

Second place goes to the Chronicles of Prydain, by Lloyd Alexander. The Book of Three, The Black Cauldron, The Castle of Llyr, Taren Wanderer, and The High King. In the 1960s Alexander had the same idea JK Rowling did a few years ago- a series of books for kids/young adults which grow in depth and maturity as they proceed. Only Alexander does it in a fraction of the page count and with vastly better writing. Buy them. Read them. Read them to your kids.

Mannahin got me to read Snow Crash years ago. He's my hiro.

Posted By Mannahnin on 05/03/2007 1:30 PM

Second place goes to the Chronicles of Prydain, by Lloyd Alexander. The Book of Three, The Black Cauldron, The Castle of Llyr, Taren Wanderer, and The High King. In the 1960s Alexander had the same idea JK Rowling did a few years ago- a series of books for kids/young adults which grow in depth and maturity as they proceed. Only Alexander does it in a fraction of the page count and with vastly better writing. Buy them. Read them. Read them to your kids.

Ooh, this right here. If I was to mention fantasy, right after Tolkien's works would be this series. I grew up reading these books (I think I even read them before J.R.R.'s stuff) and I loved them. It has been years since I've read them (I'm missing a couple books out of the series :S ) but I definitely remember them being a fantastic read. 

Exalt! Been awhile since I read those. Excellent books and would also recommend them (not as good as GRR Martin's series but defintely worth checking out). The prequels are kinda cool too although IIRC there's a wierd twist in the last one.

Thought I'd add an interesting tidbit about how Paks came to be (looked at Wiki after reading Mann's post):

Posted By malfred on 05/03/2007 1:35 PM
Mannahin got me to read Snow Crash years ago. He's my hiro.

Also your protagonist, Felix?

The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien, is a collection of short stories about a company of soldiers in Vietnam. In vivid detail, he shows the horrors of war, those that stay on the battlefield, and those that come home when battle is over. A Vietnam vet himself, he gets into the heads of the soldiers and shows an unpolished yet no less noble soldier's experience. This is not the Mawkish lovefest of Band of Brothers or Tom Brokaw, nor is it a boomer-flashback into the guilt-ridden 60s, but stories about human needs and human desires and human experiences, making it--despite being fiction--entirely true.

Why for gamers? On a perfectly surface (and perhaps maudlin) level, he is descriptive enough of the jungle that one could use it as graphic inspiration for scenery. Likewise, the way he describes a soldier's lot while in country makes for great inspiration for scenarios. The imagery of the girlfriend gone native/savage/special forces in chapter 9, "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong", has all kinds of possibilities.

More to the fact, the stories remind us of the realities of war, always a good thing when we play at our games, lest we become too enamored of the things we carry. 

I loved that book. I got to read all my brother's Vietnam books back in the day, I still treasure my dog-eared copies of Gustav Hasford's The Short Timer's, and Neil Sheehan's A Bright Shining Lie.

I'm not sure if anyone has said this yet, but Glen Cook's Chronicles of the Black Company series brings humor to hard fantasy.

Things They Carried was about brutal memory and how we cope. That
was a great read.

Since we're on a Vietnam riff, I'll recommend Garth Ennis's Punisher: Born. It's
a great Vietname/Frank Castle story about the origins of the Punisher in
America's Heart of Darkness.

second a bright shining lie.

Posted By Hellfury on 05/03/2007 10:20 PM
second a bright shining lie.

While I haven't read the book, the movie based on it was excellent as well and features Bill Paxton as Vann. Given the greater depth literature allows, if the film was even remotely true to the book it must be an awesome read.

If you're looking for some heavier reading, then Neal Stephenson has some other works you should check out as well (although I have to admit I'm a nearly rabid fan of all of his works).

Cryptonomicon - An EXCELLENT read about cryptography both in World War II and now.  There's a bit of math in there, but the characters are terrific and the story is rich and textured.  It's historical fiction, not true fiction, so a few historical liberties are taken to help develop the story.  It has gotten me thinking about modern day cryptography as well.   What I find most interesting about the book is how cryptography is tied into the development of international currency as well as personal freedom.  Mr. Stephenson has some very interesting ideas along these lines.  This leads into the next recommendation.

The Baroque Cycle (Quicksilver, The Confusion, The System of the World) - This series (it's sometimes broken up into 8 books, so it's not really a trilogy, even though Mr. Stephenson said he suspects that people will call it that anyway) uses characters from the same bloodlines as those in Cryptonomicon, so there's a bit of familiarity for the informed reader.  It follows (in broad strokes) Sir Isaac Newton, Gottfried Liebnitz, the Royal Society, French royalty... honestly, too many things to follow.  It focuses on mathematics, the fall of alchemy and the rise of modern science, and the development of the modern monetary system.  Again, historical fiction, but delightfully intertwined with a rollicking romp across the planet.  At the end of reading the series, I really got the feeling that I was saying goodbye to friends I'd never see again, their stories told. 

I am surprised that Iorek hasn't recommended Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. Golden Compass, Subtle Knife, and Amber Spyglass.

Heh heh.  Honestly, I was at a bad point in my life when I read them, and don't remember them very clearly.  I actually dug them back out this weekend to read them again.  I remember liking the first two much better than the third one, but like I said, I was having a bad time of it back then.

What I'm trying to say is that while I enjoyed them, I can't actually tout their merits without evidence.

Are we including non-fic? If so, then I just finished Blink by Malcolm Gladwell and have also read Tipping Point by him. Both are very good and in the same vein as Freakonomics (another must read).

Ozymandias, King of Kings

The merits of His Dark Materials lie in some of its actual strangeness
and subversiveness. Too much fantasy uses Dragons and Magic for
its strangeness. Dark Materials gives us fighting bears and Dust.

I can't believe no one has mentioned terry prattchet, any of their Discworld books are amazing, but if i had to choose one, it would be "Guards!Guards?"

Depres,

Why Guards! Guards? The only ones I've read are The Color of Magic and
Wintersmith, both of which I've liked. What's Guards about?

S. M. Stirling.

All his stuff is a good read, but the Draka trilogy  (Marching Through Georgia, Under the Yoke, and The Stone Dogs) stand out as an alternate history where things go very, very wrong for the good guys.