Dune# - Herbert
Ringworld# - Niven
The Mote in God's Eye - Niven/Pournelle
Lucifer's Hammer - Niven/Pournelle
Fahrenheit 451 - Bradbury
The Martian Chronicles - Bradbury
The Illustrated Man - Bradbury
Stranger in a Strange Land - Heinlein
Starship Troopers - Heinlein
Ender's Game - Card
From the Earth to The Moon - Verne
Journey to The Center of The Earth - Verne
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea - Verne
The Time Machine - Wells
The War of the Worlds - Wells
Starchild# - Pohl/Williamson
Foundation# - Asimov
I, Robot - Asimov
The Left Hand of Darkness - LeGuin
The Forge of God - Bear
2001 - A Space Odyssey - Clarke
Rendevous with Rama - Clarke
Childhood's End - Clarke
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Dick
Battlefield Earth - Hubbard
The Andromeda Strain - Crichton
1984 - Orwell
A Clockwork Orange - Burgess
*Inspired by Abby
#These have coherent trilogies that probably qualify as classics Disclaimer - Fantasy, Horror and Alternative History are excluded from my list.
art [email] said at 9:54 AM 04-04-2006: I had placed your first two on my list at first but removed them. Then put them back and removed them again. I found that Brave New World is classified as Non-Fiction. Hitchhiker's is indeed classified as science fiction but I wondered about the serious-enough part also. They both are must read books and maybe they belong on the list.
I've read Scrodingers a few times, but it is pure science
jeremy [email] said at 9:02 AM 04-04-2006: I think that this is pretty damn good list. Though I feel like there is something missing.. Maybe "Against Inifinity" by Gregory Benford. There are a few short stories that belong here. Maybe Asimov's "The Last Question".
art [email] said at 9:58 AM 04-04-2006: I'm admittedly weak on the short stories because I favor novels, so there are probably a few that belong up here. I'll make an effort to read any shorts people recommend.
I like Benford. I've read Eater, Artifact, Beyond the Fall of Night and Shiva Descending but have not read the one you mention. Perhaps it will be my next book.
josh [email] said at 10:57 AM 04-04-2006: Dune# - The first one is excellent but I personally thought the later books fell off significantly
Ringworld# - i can't get into this guy's writing
Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, the Illustrated Man - Excellent
Stranger in a Strange Land - I couldn't get into this
Ender's Game - Required reading
Journey to The Center of The Earth,
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea - these are fun but really a bit more adventurous
The Time Machine - worth a read
I, Robot - excellent
2001 - A Space Odyssey - great
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - this is very good but also extremely odd - his short stories may be a better starting point
Battlefield Earth - i couldn't read more than a few pages of this, his writing is just awful
The Andromeda Strain - a fun read but nothing really significant
1984 - great
A Clockwork Orange - amazing book, but slightly difficult read if you get a copy with no glossary, as the book is written in their future slang. this makes it very immersive, however. also note there are huge differences in the UK and US versions of the book - they have different endings.
rick [email] said at 11:01 AM 04-04-2006: The Andromeda Strain - a fun read but nothing really significant
Have to disagree with you. It may not make any philosophical and/or sociopolitical points and/or insight into the human condition but nonetheless, it illustrates (to my way of thinking) the process of research and scientific theory very well. I only wish the federal government worked as well as it did in The Andromeda Strain; sadly, I think it works as well as the government did in Brazil.
art [email] said at 11:14 AM 04-04-2006: Dune Messiah I thought was really good, Children of Dune not so much but it was a bridge to Messiah. His later books got stranger and stranger and i stopped reading after number 5
Andromeda - Like a lot of Crichton it is sci-fi lite but for its time it took on a novel topic
josh [email] said at 12:58 PM 04-04-2006: i thought about snow crash, but honestly i'm not sure how well that book will/does hold up. i certainly loved it when i was younger however, but i'm afraid it will feel very "gen x" or something
kiche [email] said at 1:43 PM 04-04-2006: solaris was excellent. the cyberiad was alright, more in the realm of the hitch hiker's guide to the galaxy, though.
abby [email] said at 2:11 PM 04-04-2006: id put sphere before andromeda strain any day, if i had to include a chrichton book at all!
not a lot of people will get behind me on my strong endorsement of gene wolfe, but that is because they havent read his work. gene wolfe's book of the new sun should top, or nearly top, any genre list.
art [email] said at 2:32 PM 04-04-2006: I don't remember Sphere as being particularly ground breaking whereas A-Strain was the first of the scary bug books and I liked its minimalist simplicity
brandonA [email] said at 4:42 PM 04-10-2006: holy shit, thank you again, abby and art.
This post jogged my memory that when I went to the Scifi museum in Seattle, I wrote down all of the books that sounded cool, and then promptly forgot about the list.
One of these books was 'The fifth head of cerberus' by gene wolfe. I picked that up this weekend, and have already finished it.
I think it should be added to the list as a classic, because it's simply one of the most original and fun things (sci-fi or no) that I've read in many years.
katieoffline said at 5:09 PM 04-10-2006: cat's cradle could be on there, too.
it may technically be satire, but i don't know how much more sci-fi you can get than the idea of "ice-nine". sorry i keep pushing the vonnegut.
