What's your favourite science fiction book?

[661-Pete]

What was the book that got you into reading science fiction?

Good question. I think, in my tender years, I was absorbed in the abundance of spaceman comics that were on the shelves at that time - can't remember them now! I do recall, that my father strongly disapproved: this would have been the 1950s, 'Sputnik fever' had hit the globe, but my father was of the same opinion as Richard Woolley ("Richard WHO?" I hear you mutter? Astronomer Royal of the age, he of the immortal utterance "space travel is utter bilge"*). My father opined that "men would never get to the moon". He lived long enough to see himself proved wrong!

But that's not really SF proper, I don't think. I think the first proper SF novel that I read through - was HG Wells' The Time Machine. If that's 'real' SF. Another good question.

*Opinions vary as to what Woolley really did say.

 

[661-Pete]

I've never really got SF (just as I never got fantasy stuff, like LOTR or the Hobbit ), but if Day of the Triffids counts as SF, that's fab!

If you like Triffids and don't mind it being called SF, that's fine. Good that there's a book that you enjoyed.

Difficult to draw a boundary around what's SF and what's not. Some people categorize Nineteen Eighty-Four as SF. I don't, I call it pure dystopia and political satire. But maybe, from the perspective of the time when it was written (1948) it did look like Science Fiction. Consider: set in the future. Technology we didn't have then - universal surveillance (alas we do have it now!). People believed - then - that it was an impossible world that would never really happen. Hence: SF.

P.S. [edit] Has the 'impossible' world happened yet? Comments?

 

[cisamcgu]

Ender's Game .... Orson Scott Card

 

[Cheddar George]

I don't generally read SF. I have read and enjoyed some of the Iain M Banks following on from reading the Iain Banks general fiction novels.

The only one that sticks in my memory was "Enders game" but i can't remember the author.

 

[Cheddar George]

I shouldn't have taken so long typing that last post !!!!

 

[cisamcgu]

 

[Flying_Monkey]

The thing that got me into SF? I really can't remember. Probably something by Heinlein or Arthur C. Clarke. I also remember reading those big hardback SF anthologies you used to get in the library (in the adult section where I wasn't really allowed to go, but I had special permission...).

 

[rh100]

Did anyone ever read L Ron Hubbard, Mission Earth Series or Battlefield Earth?

 

[Carwash]

Did anyone ever read L Ron Hubbard, Mission Earth Series or Battlefield Earth?

Only the Tom Cruise fans.

But seriously - six pages into this thread, and no mention of 'Dune'? Kull wahad!

 

[Perfect Virgo]

I don't have a favourite novel but Iain M Banks is the best of the sci-fi authors I've read. I prefer his couple of stand alone novels (particularly "The Algebraist") over the Culture series, they are a bit hit and miss for me apart from possibly "Excession."

As to his Iain Banks guise, I don't believe he crosses genre as satisfactorily as the critics claim. Only "The Wasp Factory" and "Espedair Street" stand out from his straight works, for me. Can't get his books at libraries or book stores in my part of the world so if I want to read him I have to order online.

Others worth a look are Alastair Reynolds "Century Rain" and Robert Charles Wilson "Spin."

 

[TheDoctor]

But seriously - six pages into this thread, and no mention of 'Dune'? Kull wahad!

I tried to read Dune, but I found myself losing the will to live.
Not my cup of tea at all...

 

[MacB]

I enjoyed Enders Game(Orson Scott Card) but the follow ups were weak for me, whereas I wasn't enamoured of Dune but enjoyed some of the subsequent books more. L Ron Hubbard, I read Battlefield Earth, it's ok a little simplistic but some fun ideas. Tried his Mission Earth series, think it's about 10 books, but never made it past about No 4, and it was sheer perseverance to get that far. I was also a lot younger then and yet they stil lseemed immature.

I've got most of Ian Banks, without the M, books as well, more hit and miss than his SciFi for me. Sometimes it can seem similar to reading Martin Amis. Liked the Wasp Factory, Walking on Glass and Espedair Street, not so enamoured of Canal Dreams, and Whit I thought was quite poor. On the SciFi side Excession, Use of Weapons and Look to Windward are up there for me. Like most of the others except Against a Dark Background, apart from the Solipsism humour, that one left me cold.

What first started me on SciFi? very hard to pin down, I probably drifted in via fantasy. Some of my earliest books were The Hobbit, The Weirdstone of Brisingham and The Moon of Gomrath by Alan Garner. The Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper, Lord of the Rings, the Narnia books. Earliest SciFi would have been Asimov, ACC and the big bumper books of short stories. I've gone through phases of authors, find a book I like and then buy/borrow everything they've done. Over the years I've moved further away from fantasy and my tastes have trended towards harder science. Can be a bit heavy going sometimes so the odd light read is welcome.

I think if you like reading you'll read almost anything. I've read the kids books, including the inevitable Harry Potters, Janes collection of Wilkie Collins. All sorts of pulp thriller, detective stuff, horror, potboilers. The only ones I've almost never read are biographies, just never appealed. We had a clear out last year and I think over 300 books went to the charity shop. Though I've now been looking at e-books and the storage/viewing mediums. Some of them look pretty good now and the idea of being able to carry around a huge library is very attractive. Apart from anything else it would save a huge amount of space at home.

 

[Flying_Monkey]

Did anyone ever read L Ron Hubbard, Mission Earth Series or Battlefield Earth?

Yeah. Enough to know they are awful. Do we have a scientologist in the house? They seem to be the only people who think the awful old fraudster had much in the way of literary talent...

 

[Flying_Monkey]

Some of my earliest books were The Hobbit, The Weirdstone of Brisingham and The Moon of Gomrath by Alan Garner. The Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper, Lord of the Rings, the Narnia books.

Same here! Alan Garner has also written two of my absolute favourite recent English novels of recent years, Strandloper and Thursbitch...

 

[chap]

I am not generally a reader of Science Fiction, however I did enjoy 'Around the world in 80 days' by Jules Verne.