Sci-fi is my speciality
Second the Peter F. Hamilton. He's an absolutely amazing English author.
His first trilogy, The
Greg Mandel stuff is pretty damn good though loses its way in the third book (The Nano Flower).
The
Night's Dawn Trilogy is amazing.
The
Commonwealth trilogy is also great stuff. Well, its really one book (
Misspent Youth) that is loosely connected to the second two (
Pandora's Star &
Judas Unchained).
Fallen Dragon is ok but is kind of a 'filler' book in between Night's Dawn and the Commonwealth novels.
If Hamilton has one flaw, its his inability to tell a story in less than 1000 pages
The Gap Series by Stephen Donaldson is the most awesome thing ever.
I am HUUUUUUGE fan of
Dune but have completely steered clear of anything written by Kevin J. Anderson (the Jeph Loeb of sci-fi novels) and Brian "I am not Christopher Tolkien all over again" Herbert.
Anything by Philip K. Dick is great (if you can stomach every story being some drug-fuelled paranoid fantasy). FYI: Blader Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, Paycheck, Screamers and a couple of other big named films I can't remember are all based on short stories/novellas written by Phil.
Julian May has written loads of really great sci-fi but it is her
Exiles Saga that stands out for me. Check out the
Many Coloured Land and its sequels. It is borderline fantasy after a fashion, so it might not be your thang. But the later books,
Intervention and then the
Galactic Mileu trilogy are more traditional sci-fi novels but you kinda need to read the earlier ones IMO. Scratch that, I think you could read them without. But it has been a while and I wouldn't want to steer you wrong
Ian M. Banks has written some good sci-fi. I started reading
Against A Dark Background but stopped for some reason. I forget why, 'cause I was enjoying it
Oh, I think I had to read Dune for the millionth time. I did read
Use of Weapons and that had a GREAT twist in it.
Harry Harrison has written some stuff too. The
Deathworld Trilogy stand out (but the first novel is the strongest IMO). Any of the
Stainless Steel Rat novels pretty much rule
The
Odyssey series by Arthur C. Clark has its moments. However, the stand out for me was the third novel
2061. I really enjoyed that. The worst one was the fourth, IMO.
The first
Amber series by Roger Zelazny is great too. While it could also be considered borderline fantasy, its exploration of other realities sets it apart for me.
I've heard very good things about Orson Scott Card's stuff. Never picked anything up myself. Will get round to it one day (when I've kicked my TPB habit
).
H G Wells (the granddaddy of modern sci-fi) has written some great stuff. The ones I've read are
War of the Worlds, the
Invisible Man and
The First Men In The Moon. Despite being written in the later 19th Century, its still pretty good.
Ray Bradbury is a good source of sci-fi stuff. He's written LOADS of short stories. He also wrote the
Martian Chronicles. But I've only seen the 70s mini series that is based on it, so can't comment on the writing. IIRC,
Solyent Green is based on one of Bradbury's stories. I may be wrong.
The
Mars books (Red Mars, Green Mars etc) are interesting. But I got stuck during the second book. They are very long winded and a bit pretentious in places. I will have to finish the series one day though.
1984 by George Orwell, while sci-fi in only the loosest sense, is still a great book and rather chilling.
Now, if you want to read the source material for all classic space opera (Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Flash Gordon et al), look no further than E E "Doc" Smith's
Lensmen. I absolutely LOVED these books. While very much a product of their time (1930s pulp in style), they have some very clever ideas contained within.
I've always wanted to check out
Ringworld by Larry Niven but never got round to it.
John Wyndham has written some good stuff.
Chocky and
Day of the Triffids are but two of his cool works.
Kurt Vonnegurt is a weird one. His sci-fi is kinda difficult to explain. I've only read
Slaughterhouse 5, which I enjoyed, but i was kind of left wondering what it was all about.
A Canticle For Leibowitz is meant to be a classic. I've never read it though.
I read a very strange book about an alien signal altering people and living cities but I forget what it was called
There are LOADS and LOADS of great Doctor Who novels, if that's your thing.
I started reading
20,000 Leagues Under The Sea but found it heavy going. Which is weird, since I ate Arthur C. Clarke for breakfast
Man, I read this book,
The Boy Who Reversed Himself when I was 12 or so. It was crazy! But in a good way
Its all about some kid who is the guardian of the 2nd dimension whom travels to the 4th dimension and weird crap happens.
Stephen Bowkett has written some great stuff. Mainly for teenagers but still great.
Catch (an anthology of his) is pretty good. He's like Neil Gaiman lite.
The
Dragonriders stuff by Anne McCaffrey are sci-fi fantasy. Seemed well written but never really got in to them.
The Iron Man upon which the movie
The Iron Giant was based is great.
Oh, that weird book about living cities? I think it was
Crescent City Rhapsody. But without digging out the book from my parents' house, I can't be certain.
Now, please no one stone me for mentioning this, but I saw the mini series for
Tek War some years ago and rather enjoyed it. I just wondered if the books were any good?
Steer clear of anything by Michael Crichton.
We all owe Harlan Ellison quite a lot for his contribution to sci-fi but he's such a real-life crank that I'm scared to admit it. I'm scared now that I've written that because he might come round my house and punch me. Now I've said that, I'm DEFINITELY getting a phone call from him ...
I keep wanting to buy books by Elizabeth Moon but again, I've not read any of her stuff. Any comments?
I'll probably make no friends by saying this but the first Aliens vs Predator novel is pretty good! Its based on the comic strip though, so if you've read that, steer clear, I guess.
That's all I can remember off the top of my head.
