Posted on 08/01/2015 1:29:27 PM PDT by EveningStar
Science fiction and fantasy offer a rich legacy of great books--but that abundant pile of reading material can also be daunting. So sometimes, it's easier to fake it. We asked some of our favorite writers, and they told us the 10 books that everyone pretends to have read. And why you should actually read them.
From Asimov to Pynchon, science fiction contains some fantastic, ambitious works of genre fiction. But a lot of us get overwhelmed. And it's not that hard to fake a first-hand knowledge of these books, because they're everywhere, and we've heard people talk about them so many times. We SF fans are good at pretending. But these books are classics for a reason -- and they're worth reading.
(Excerpt) Read more at io9.com ...
For newer science fiction, I really enjoyed “The Unincorporated Man.” I’m going to start Dune after I finish “Tragedy and Hope.”
Cryptonomnicon - read it, very good.
Dune - Read most of the series, starts great, stops being great
Gravity’s Rainbow - never read it
Foundation - read all but the last, just couldn’t do it anymore. The older Asimov got the thinner he spread his plots and the more he was just killing trees for the sake of killing trees.
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell - Just finished watching the BBC TV show. Pretty good. Not good enough to make me want to read the book.
1984 - Read it in school. yeah.
And actually don’t know about the rest.
Foundation is part of a trilogy and the overarching story is why you read it.
Fun
Yes, but how often do you watch the movie? :)
Couldn't grok it?
And Total Recall.
My children had a have to read list, for highschool
In this order:
Animal Farm
Brave New World
1984
The Earth Abides
The Long Walk
They have thanked me for having them read them. I have tried to get them interested in SF. It is best read while young.
Outstanding books! And high density Christian Wisdom within
Spelled Perelandra
Thanks for the reply, but that’s not it.
The one I’m thinking about had a story line more on the order of Lucifer’s Hammer, which got great reviews here for awhile, but I found it to be not all that great.
And, when I said years ago, I’m guessing 10+.
Thanks again.
Ditto.
My brother was reading this, back in the day, so I picked it up and read the last page.
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!
I’ve read Animal Farm, 1984 and Brave New World. I’ve never heard of the other two.
Newer stuff?
David Weber...pretty much anything by him including the Honor Harrington series and its spin offs, the Safehold series (one of my favorites), Empire of man series, and so on...
John Ringo’s “Black Tide Rising” series fascinated me some how, I’m not sure why. I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in post apocalyptic fiction. His Posleen War series was also very good, though some of the spin-offs got a bit tedious. His Council Wars series was definitely a different spin on a forced return to pre-industrial age society, and lastly his “Paladin of Shadows” series quite rightly sparked the “Oh John Ringo, No!” meme a few years ago, but I still liked them ;)
Personally I liked Prey better than Timeline, but both are good. State of Fear is a great debunk of global warming.
My favorite SF writers are Silverberg, Vance, George Alec Effinger, and Gardner Duzois.
I just started reading The Martian.
If fantasy is included, one series that left me spellbound, enwrapt in delicious literary bondage, was The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever by Stephen R. Donaldson.
10 books to tell the tale; it is not for the commitment-phobic ;)
No wonder the hippies revered him. Free love, indeed! Blecchhh.
I liked Footfall. I also started to read Lucifer’s Hammer but lost the book midway through. I’ll have to get a copy and finish it sometime.
“Footfall”?
Invasion story, asteroid impact, plucky american heroes, and same authors as “Lucifer’s Hammer”.
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