Topic: QotW #71: What is your favorite Science Fiction book?

[Brent Barrett]

What is your favorite Science Fiction book?

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[AmméLeep]

Asimov's "The Gods Themselves."  I keep hoping someone will make it into a movie, now that it possibly could be done with CGI. 

[Crackers DO Matter]

For me this is easy.

Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke.

 I was given a hardcover copy back in 1975 or so, and have read it several times since then. I can still remember reading it and getting totally lost in that world.

I know there had been talk about making it into a movie for several years ... I still waiting !!!!!

[farscape13]

This would be Isaac Asimov's Foundation saga for me. Probably the biggest and boldest story arc in the Science Fiction history. It must have been at least 10 years since I've read, so  thanks for bringing back the memories. I think I'll dig out the books and read it again

[jeffrabb]

OMG! How can ANYONE give a single answer to that question?!

So in this instance I REALLY need to pull a Kevin here.

Top of my list would be the entire Pern series by Anne McCaffrey.  In fact my first online fandom was with the Pern fandom on Compuserve during the mid to late '90s.

A close second would be the Heris Serrano and Esmay Suisa series by Elizabeth Moon

Terry Brooks' Shannara series (hmmmm.....another series.  I think I'm detecting a trend here )

Timothy Zahn's Star Wars novels (Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, The Last Command, Specter of the Past, and Visions of the Future)

Anne McCaffrey's Crystal Singer series

David Brin's Uplift War series

I think that list will keep most folks busy at least until the 2009 Summer vacation break

Jeff

[silverphantom1972]

well id have to say it was the only one i read cover to cover in under a week

it was Star Trek TNG's  "IMZADI" all though i dont think i could go through a "Betaziod Wedding" i dont even think id be able to sit through one.

[spk]

My favorite science fiction book is Alien Blood by Joan D. Vinge. It includes the novels Psion and Catspaw. The main character, Cat, is unforgettable.

[Mysterious Stranger]

I'm going to go with a classic from my childhood and say "The Cat In The Hat" by Dr. Seuss.  I'd like to say it's "There's A Wocket In My Pocket" but that's more horror than straight up sci-fi.  "The Cat's" giant cleaning machine is what makes this book for me.  That thing was cool!  And who doesn't love Thing 1 and Thing 2, the Seussian versions of the classic henchman.  Forget Asimov, Clark and Lovecraft.  For sci-fi literature make mine Seuss.

...

Why are you all looking at me like that?


(pleez 2 be red by Hank Schiffman, kthxbai!)

[scorpiesue]

...my favorite Sci-Fi book is Farmer in the Sky by Robert A Heinlein...i read this book when i was
   very, very, young and it changed my life...it opened my eyes to the world of science fiction
   and how exciting stories could be when you have to use your imagination to read about worlds
   and people who can do what we think, would be impossible...

[Hank Shiffman]

I'll do a Kevin and give two, both by Robert Heinlein.  Both Double Star and The Door Into Summer demonstrate what Heinlein did so well: tell very human stories within the genre of science fiction.  They're both about protagonists who find themselves in situations they never anticipated, and they do their best to adapt to their new surroundings.  They're secondarily love stories, and believable ones at that.  They showed me that SF could be more.

[dealan]

I don't know if it counts as science fiction, but my favorite genre book of all time is Guy Gavriel Kay's Lions of Al-Rassan. I hesitate to call it fantasy because there is no magic and it does happen on another planet, but the story also feels like historical fiction because it's basically a re-imagining of the Legend of El-Cid.

A close second would have to be Gate to Women's Country by Sheri S Tepper, which is near and dear to my heart as it was my first foray into hard-core science-fiction. Up until then, the Wrinkle in Time series was the closest I got to sci-fi, but in freshman year of high school, we had to read it for English class, and thus I was introduced to the Sci-Fi/Fantasy section of the bookstore. Ender's Game, Dune, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and Star Wars and Star Trek soon followed, but it wouldn't have happened if not for that first one.

[jeffrabb]

I just wanted to add that I agree with Farscape13, Asimov's Foundation Trilogy (well, now it's a series too! ) has got to be considered part of the foundation of present day science fiction literature.  That trilogy was required reading in my college literature course in Science Fiction (hardest damn A I've ever earned! <seriously>).  It roped me in so well that I've gone on and read all the succeeding releases from that series.

Jeff

[BenMech]

Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker series.
Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy
Asimov's Foundation series
Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth
I'll name more later

[Danny Grazer]

  Currently I am reading the " Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy " for the second time . I have all five books (in a boxed-set .  ( and the movie of it with Martin Freeman as Arthur Dent ) .  And before that I was reading " Interlopers "  - by Alan Dean Foster ( because Ben Browder is the one reading the audio-book ) . I have both the book and the audio-book cd's .  I love them both , so I tend to read one , then go back to the other .  And I never tire of reading them , so I guess you can say those are my favourite Science fiction books .

[Michael Falkner]

This is a tough one.  I love books so much that almost every book feels like my favorite.

Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein,
Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow by Orson Scott Card,
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury,
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams,
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle,
Star Trek: Imzadi by Peter David,
Star Trek: Q-Squared by Peter David,
Star Trek: Federation by Michael Jan Friedman,
and anything Star Wars by Timothy Zahn or Karen Traviss.

Also in the podcast novel realm:
The 7th Son series by J. C. Hutchins,
Playing For Keeps by Mur Lafferty,
and the Share series by Nathan Lowell.

I'm sure more answers will unearth themselves from my brain, and I'll edit this post as they do.