H. Beam Piper’s Fuzzy series, including the two posthumous novels. The Paratime work is also good.
James H. Schmitz, The Witches of Karres, and anything else he wrote. Trigger Argee and Telzey Amberdon are two good characters!
Tom Godwin, “The Survivors” or Ragnarok Calling, and the short “Cold Equations”. Cold Eq was a very controversial story that has led to endless engineering and social analysis.
“A Canticle For Liebowitz” is quirky but good, a post-to-pre apocalyptic tale with lots of little details (the first abbott of the monestary’s name begins with A, and the last, well, you know.)
“Day of the Triffids”! John Wyndham. Forget the movie.
“The Chrysalids”, one of my all time favorite novels, called “Re-Birth in the US. Also Wyndham.
For authors: Niven and Pournelle.
BUMP for later.
Brandon Sanderson is the best of the newer authors. I am excited that he was chosen to finish for Robert Jordan. In my opinion, he rates above Jordan - especially the later books.
Raymond Feist
Roger Zelazny
Ursula LeGuin (Earthsea)
Patricia McKillip (Riddle-Master of Hed)
Aasimov’s Foundation
E.E. “Doc” Smith - Lensman series
Saberhagen’s Swords books
Finally, one who does both genres well: Orson Scott Card (Ender and 7th Son)
Time Enough For Love (best quotes)
The prose is carefully crafted, and in places exquisite. Stephenson remains an excellent and deep writer, a sort of Hermann Hesse with a space helmet on, and lovers of well-written prose will find Anathem a good, solid read. And, while the book contains hidden treasures for readers with some knowledge of philosophy and geometry, it's perfectly enjoyable for those who just want a good story as well.
I recommend Anathem as a worthy diversion for thinking science fiction fans.
Pohl, Fred Saberhagen, Larry Niven, Spyder Robinson, Harry Turtledove, Armor by Steakley, etc.
One of my favorites is “Division of Mass”. I can’t find the book nor remember the author’s name but that book scared the sh!!!t out of me.
Mike
Ender's Game and "First Meetings in the Enderverse". Interestingly, the First Meetings book includes the original short story. The First Meetings book will leave you scratching your head a little if you are familiar with the Ender mythos.
Ender's Shadow, a BIG book about little Bean. Too big, really, and I couldn't wait for it to just get started already. It seemed to contradict some of the stuff from Ender. OTOH, the book changed some of aspects of the story. Dramatically, in some cases.
The first two Bard's Tale books. Sorry, forgot the name. They were both co-written by Mercedes Lackey, who was Guest of Honor at Lunacon last year. They have nothing to do with the computer game, other than the title. The first one was better than the second. (Sorry, forgot the titles.)
Ummmmm.... I can't think of others of the top of my head, oddly enough. I gotta check my list.
Let me suggest some lesser-known authors that are really quite good;
1. Mark L. van Name — His Jon and Lobo series (One Jump Ahead, Slanted Jack, and Overthrowing Heaven) are lots of fun. Hard, hard, SF
2. David Freer — mix of SF and fantasy. Often collaborates with Eric Flint. Slow Train To Arcturus is great hard SF. A Mankind Witch, and his new Dragon’s Ring are excellent fantasy.
3. John Lambshead — only one book (Lucy’s Blade), a time-travel piece that is loads of fun.
4. Michael Z. Williamson — His Freehold series has hit four or so books, and is great hard SF
For SF, Heinlein and Asimov were far, far above their peers - no one since William Gibson has done much that doesn't seem to be a warmed-over remake of what has gone before. And too many very good SF writers (like Kim Stanley Robinson) have been bitten by the "Green" bug and have taken to cranking out Al Gore speeches disguised as fiction. Vernor Vinge is one writer I still like.
Fantasy has been dead for a while - killed by too many feminist witch parables, LoTR clones, and Robert Jordan clones of Dungeons and Dragons clones of LoTR clones. :)
The Liaden Universe novels by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=liaden+universe
Honor Harrington series by David Weber, well actually, most things by David Weber. :-)
Saga of The Seven Suns by Kevin J. Anderson-A 7 novel series that involves a large scale interstellar war between several alien species. An epic space opera.
The Posleen War series by John Ringo-Vicious aliens invade Earth and we fight back, great battles with nuclear artillery in this one. (oh yeah!)
For recent books, I recommend John Scalzi - “Old Man’s War”, “Ghost Brigades”, “The Last Colony”. The basis for the books: when people get to age 80, they can join the military and get new young almost invincible soldier bodies. Lots of fun exploring the implications.
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