In the theme of the Fantasy novel thread I thought I'd start one devoted to SF books and authors.

My short list in no particular order:
Vernor Vinge (The Peace War, Marooned in Real Time, A Fire upon the Deep, Deepness in the Sky)
A most excellent author with some truly original ideas. The Peace War is an amazing book that is nearly impossible to find. In Marooned in Real Time he introduces the idea of the Technological Singularity. He explains much better then I can here

David Brin (The Uplift Sagas, Earth, Kiln People)
Another truly thought provoking writer, the Uplift universe is, imo, the best sci fi universe, period [img]smile.gif[/img]

Robert Heinlein - One of the true Masters of the genre. Time enough for love is my favorite.

Arthur C. Clarke - Another Master writer, too many great books to list. He should have not written all the squeals to 2001 though :(

Philip K Dick - I think more of his stories have been made into movies then any other SF writer. Blade Runner (Do Androids Dream of Electric sheep?) and Minority Report being the two best. Total Recall (We Can Remember It for You Wholesale) has it charms though.

For Sci/Fi ... Michael Stackpole - BattleTech core story He also did some X-Wing series stuff but I never read them ....

I did not see this thread when I posted about Tad Williams' "Otherland" in the Fantasy thread, so I am mentioning him here again.

Otherwise, my favourites are:

Isaac Asimov: Both his Foundation and his Robots Series

Frank Herbert's: Dune

Clifford D. Simak: A whole bunch of novels.

[ 10-16-2002, 03:42 AM: Message edited by: Warhammer ]

I would have to say Isaac Asimov too.

I don't read as much SF, but I got sucked into the Faded Sun Trilogy by CJ Cherryh a while back, very good series.

I've also enjoyed some of Orson Scott Card's work, but not all.

Then there are the usuals (already listed above), Asimov, Heinlein, Herbert, Clark.

Ray Bradbury's one of my favorites. Especially liked his Martian Chronicles (also entitled The Silver Locusts). Many of his short stories are quite charming, too.

Also kind of like Brian Aldiss. I'm particularly impressed by the ideas found in his Helliconia trilogy. Just imagine an inhabited planet on which every season (spring, summer etc) spans more than 600 years. Sets your imagination on fire. [img]smile.gif[/img]

I'm quite impressed as well with Olaf Stapledon's Last and First Man, an imaginary chronicle of the next two billion years of history. Wow.

Finally, does H P Lovecraft's work count as science fiction? Really enjoy his Cthulhu stuff. ;)

I would classify Cthulhu as Horror Fantasy

Good idea Rokenn!

In no particular order:

Niven (Known Space)
Heinlein (Space Cadet and Have Space Suit, Will Travel)
Pournelle
H. Beam Piper (gotta love his Fuzzy stories!)
Vinge
David Weber (Honor Harrington)
Peter F. Hamilton (Nights Dawn)
Iain M. Banks (The Culturenote: Iain Banks and Iain M. Banks are the same person!)
Daniel Keys Moran (The Armageddon Blues)
Lois McMaster Bujold (Miles Vorkosigan)
David Drake (Hammers Slammers)
L. Neil Smith (The Probability Broach)
William C. Dietz

<font color="red">I better stop now. [img]tongue.gif[/img] </font>

<font color="cyan">For me, its Orson Scott Card for "Ender's Game" as well as a collection of his short sci-fi stories.</font color>

You should definitely read the X-Wing series of books because they are excellent. I have a few favourite aurthors, Raymond E Fiest, Sara Douglas, Tolkien and Timothy Zahn.