Favorite fantasy and science fiction novels

Neuromancer by Stephen Gibson - I lent this out so much my paperback copy fell apart. It's a cyberpunk novel involving artificial intelligence. Lots of spooky details. I've enjoyed several of his books, but I'd start with this one.

Snowcrash by Neal Stephenson - A novel involving pizza delivery, corporate mini-states, Sumerian mythology and where they interact in the Metaverse. I like some of his books and hat others, but definitely enjoyed this one.

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card - Caveat: OSC is a homophobe, in case that's a deal breaker. He's a talented writer of speculative fiction, though he repeats his themes. He's a Mormon and supposedly other Mormons recognize tropes in his books.

Are you plot driven or character driven reader OP?

And do you delight in the unexpected or do find comfort in the standard tropes of whatever literature category that you read?

Plot-driven, R2, and I have no problem in the standard tropes. I like them. Thanks in advance.

The Ender's Game movie was boring. It felt unfinished.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Totally agree with Neuromancer and Snow Crash. Great entry books to both authors who have amazing genre defining talent.

I’m currently reading the Expanse series by James S A Corey (pseudonym). I watched the tv series and thought the first season was a bit cheesy but the next seasons were great. The books are even better. Think of it as a diluted Game of Thrones set as a space opera without any incest.

Really liked reading the Magicians series by Lev Grossman. Reading this series too was inspired by the tv series which was a poorly acted campy show on Syfy but fun. This is like an adult Harry Potter series.

Loved Dune as well. All of these are great gateways to sci-fi and fantasy.

Good luck and if you read any of these, it’d be great to hear your thoughts on them

The Neverending Story - Ende The Last Unicorn - Beagle The Fellowship of the Ring - Tolkien (Hobbit is the prequel) The Black Cauldron - Alexander

Death Gate Cycle by Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman.

Ender's Game is a great book if you're a 12-year-old boy.

Pilgrimage and The People: No Different Flesh by Zenna Henderson. The two companion books were republished in a joint volume called Ingathering: The Book of the People.

The Past Through Tomorrow by Robert Heinlein

The ConSentiency triology by Frank Herbert

Up the Line by Robert Silverburg

The Dresden Files by Patrick Butcher

A series of contemporary fantasy/mystery novels written as a first-person narrative from the perspective of the main character, private investigator and wizard Harry Dresden, as he recounts investigations into supernatural disturbances in modern-day Chicago. Magic is real - as well as vampires, demons, spirits, faeries, werewolves, outsiders and other monsters - and while the supernatural is still widely discredited, it is practiced by some members of society. Additionally, large portions of the globe (such as much of Central and South America) are mentioned as being largely under the control of supernatural factions. Dresden works as the world's only "consulting wizard", accepting supernatural cases from both human and nonhuman clients, as well as the Chicago PD's Special Investigation unit.

Butcher does some great world building and is skilled at building up the action.

I loved "On The Beach" by Neville Schute. Also, the movie version was top-notch with an exceptional cast--Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Anthony Perkins, Fred Astaire...

Lucifer’s Hammer, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Neuromancer, Ender’s Game, The Word for World is Forest, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. These should provide a short list of great authors. There are so many others. This genre got me through high school, college, and really bad relationship. I you enjoy them.

If you like urban fantasy try the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series. Its set in St. Louis. Vampires, various kinds of shape shifters, zombies and other things are real and known to the public. Vampires become legal citizens and can't be killed on sight anymore, but rogues and violent vamps can get death warrants issued on their heads because prisons can't hold them. If you're a bad little monster an executioner will be paying you a visit and in St. Louis that means Anita. The series has 28 books and is ongoing. The first book came out in 1993, Guilty Pleasures.

Has anyone read Stephen King's Dark Tower series? Is it any good?

The Dark Tower books..... the first three were good. The ones he crapped out years later were shite.

All of the Heinlein juveniles.

Many years ago I taught a high school class in Science Fiction. I think my favorite story was "I, Robot"; novel, "Brave New World"; and author, Isaac Asimov.

I'm a pretty big sci-fi and fantasy reader, in fact these days it's pretty much all I read. There are a few books which really stand out for me and I'm always happy to recommend them. (I'm not going to type up summaries because you can just plug these into Amazon to see what they're about.)

Adams: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Banks: The Player of Games (or any of the "Culture" novels which can be read in any order)

Faber: Under the Skin

Jemisin: The Fifth Season (the first book of the "Broken Earth" trilogy but which stands alone nicely)

Sanderson: Mistborn (AKA The Final Empire, the first book of a trilogy but which stands alone nicely)

Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings

Vonnegut: The Sirens of Titan

Sirens of Titan is fun. So is Phil Farmer's Vonnegut satire novel, seriously.

I loved the Dark Tower series. For fantasy I like the Wheel of Time Series (by Robert Jordan, finished by Brandon Sanderson). David Eddings is more old school classic, the Belgariad and Mallorean are each 5 books long and feature the same main characters. He later did the Elenium and Tamuli series, each 3 books with the same main characters.

If you like your fantasy with a good dose of history, try any of the Deryni books by Katherine Kurtz. The Deryn are a race of people with magical powers who live in a world similar to medieval Wales, with Kings and Princes and a church hierarchy that figures importantly in the stories.

Or if you want a fantasy take on WWII, read her book "Lammas NIght".

Also in the fantasy realm,pretty much anything by Anne McCaffrey. Thar be dragons a-plenty!

I had a lesbian roommate once, who had a lot of feminist lit I’d dip into.

I really liked “The Mists of Avalon”, which focuses on the female characters in the King Arthur legend.

Any of the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett, which skewer the fantasy genre.

[quote]The Ender's Game movie was boring. It felt unfinished.

There are a bunch of book sequels, so maybe they left it hanging in hopes of filming them.

"The Pillars Of The Earth", by Ken Follett. It's historical fiction, and fantastic. I carried it with me EVERYWHERE when I was reading it.

R11, that's Jim Butcher.

If you like The Dresden Files you might like the Eric Carter series by Stephen Blackmoore. Eric is Harry Dresden if he was a Necromancer, and a bit less averse to killing people.

If you like hard sci-fi, then "The Martian" & "Hail Mary" by Andy Weir are both good. I liked The Martian movie well enough, but the book was better.

Lois McMaster Bujold writes both, exceptionally well! Try "The Curse of Chalion" for the former. "The Warrior's Apprentice" is the typical way into her classic SF Vorkosigan Saga; after that go back and read "Shards of Honor" and then "Barrayar" before the rest.

C.J. Cherryh is also excellent - good starting points are "The Pride of Chanur", "Cyteen", or "Downbelow Station." And her "Foreigner" series is compulsively readable fun, although less ambitious than her Eighties novels.

While not all of his books are great, Vernor Vinge's "A Fire Upon the Deep" and especially "A Deepness in the Sky" are.

The Expanse series, books by James S.A. Corey (pen name of two authors) and the television series of the same name that covers the first 5 or so books.

Read them years ago but I recall enjoying Clarke's "2001: A Space Odyssey" series.

I always enjoyed the Chronicles of Amber books by Roger Zelazny, at least the first five "Corwin" novels, didn't really care for the later "Merlin" novels.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books are great.

Isaac Asimov's Robots/Empire novels are really good too.

Jack Vance's Demon Princes series of 5 novels, a story of revenge. Jack Vance rarely disappoints.

Here's a deep cut: Almost anything by Charles de Lint. Best urban fantasy writer - the writing is really readable but also rings with subtle poetry.

Gene Wolfe - New Sun books. Top 5 of all literary works for me. Endlessly re-readable. Challenging. His short fiction is also awesome. Really, you can’t go wrong with Wolfe. Feist - Magician Cycle

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro is heartbreakingly perfect.

I wanted to like Wolfe, but "unreliable narrator" is not an excuse for discontinuous plotting and characters who appear and disappear randomly.

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

The entire back catalog of Heavy Metal magazine, until it became solely a fantasy titty mag. So from the era of Metal Hurlant up to sometime in the 1980s.

Our culture (sci fi nerds and dorks) should owe much to this series.

Anything by Jack Vance and almost anything by Philip K. Dick.

Ender's game series is properly a trilogy, but I was over it by the third book (too much Messiah complex). The first stands alone, iny view.

Ray Bradbury, when he's not doing inverted nostalgia for a bygone America, which is still good but I would class as horror instead.

As a teen in the late 70 and early 80s I was inexplicably obsessed with Omni Magazine and especially the SciFi and fantasy short stories. I would like to see them dig them out of the at archives and release a collection of them.

I loved OMNI too, t39. We used to put the magazines in "the pot" as bets during our card games.

Thanks OP for the thread. I'm loading up my Audible with a lot of the recommendations.

Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination

Puol Anderson's Flight to Forever

John Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids

Jack Finney's The Body Snatchers

Walter Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz

I second The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin, mentioned above

Also, do 1984 and Stephen King's The Tommyknockers count?

R42, 1984 is now classified as non-fiction.

R42 Thanks for reminding me of John Wyndham's "The Day of the Triffids". I reread that every few years. It's an old time favorite.

Why is everyone listing novels from fifty to seventy years ago? Do none of you read contemporary sci-fi or fantasy?

Pratchett is not from 50 years ago, r45.

R45 : Because they are old people.

Recent science fiction and fantasy is bad. 99% of science fiction and fantasy is bad, no matter when written. It’s not surprising that people are going back a ways. I love both genres but it’s just true.

However, KSR’s Red Mars is a classic written in the last 25 years. The sequels are good, too, but RM I think is the best of that trilogy.

Old geezer ^

Put your money where your mouth is, r49.

I love Philip K Dick. Especially his later novels where he really ratchets up the paranoia. A Scanner Darkly is probably peak Dick for me.

1. The Annals Of The Black Company by Glen Cook. It revolutionized fantasy back in 1980s. No more elves with chosen one heroes waving a magic where good and evil were clearly defined. This series had morally grey, complex characters that were military mercenaries who had a job to do. Be aware that only the first four books are good: The Black Company, Shadows Linger, The White Rose, and The Silver Spike. Glen Cook lost his focus in the later books and they were a mess.

The Changeling by Victor LaValle. Published in 2017. It’s a dark fairy tale set in contemporary New York City. It’s so cozy…it envelops the reader. About a man, his wife and their….baby. It won a ton of awards and it deserved them.

The Bas-Lag trilogy written China Mieville : Perdido Street Station (2000), The Scar (2002), and The Iron Council (2004). Fantastic and unique world building. I still think about the world in these novels all the time. The Scar is my favorite (the mosquito people are really disturbing and the quantum sword is my all time favorite concept of a weapon). The Iron Council main character is a gay man.

Conan by Robert E. Howard - Fun, pulpy sword and sorcery adventures. They're short stories that you don't have to read in any particular order. I would recommend (off the top of my head) the stories: The Tower of the Elephant, Queen of the Black Coast, God in the Bowl, and Rogues in the House. You really can't go wrong with Conan or Howard. Also check out the comic book adaptations of the Conan stories.

Valerie and Her Week of Wonders by Vítězslav Nezval - A surreal Czech novel, most of it is very dreamlike, gothic, and feels like a fairy tale. It basically takes the family melodrama of a girl going through puberty and coming of age and twists it into a very absurd story involving vampires, corrupt adults, magic, and changelings.

The Eternaut by Héctor Germán Oesterheld - This is a pulpy science fiction comic book from Argentina about the protagonist trying to survive an alien invasion. The writer was very much against Argentina's government at the time, and the comic could have been seen as a protest. There is a lot of political allegory in this book, but it holds up well as a work of science fiction and can be enjoyed without knowing the history behind it. I highly recommend getting a physical copy of this. If you can, it is a beautiful book.

The original Conan stories (not the edited and rewritten ones) are quite good. Anything by Howard is good. But he was a typical racist of his time, so avoid if you don't want to hear about degenerate non-white races.

So many good recommendations.

The Dragonlance Saga for 80s pulp fantasy extraordinaire. I hooked up with co-author Tracy Hickman twice. He’s a beefy, bearded, closeted Mormon and one of the best cocksuckers I ever met. His mouth his like a vacuum and he loves eating hairy hole before fucking. He’s into beefy femme guys like me.

Did he call you Raistlin while you were doing it?

Laura would like to have word with you r56

R58 I knew he was married and felt guilty about it the first time. He told me he hadn’t had sex with Laura in years and she wouldn’t do oral or anal, ever. I gave him both. We drank two fifths of Wild Turkey and spent a nice evening at a sauna in Detroit (he was working in Milwaukee at the time). He had an amazing hairy chest and massive bush.

I think you have to draw a line in science fiction between:

- the "classic" authors of the so-called pulp/golden/new wave ages of science ficiton (pulp 1920s-30s, golden 40s-50, new wave 60s-80s)

- the authors who hit from the 90s through early 2010s

- "modern" authors

What seems like tired old rehashes for stories, plots, and characters were new and interesting when the first group tackled them, while the second group beat those ideas into the ground.

For example, The Sword of Shannara was book was a complete copy of Fellowship of the Ring down to the composition of the "fellowship." The "dark lord" trope of Tolkien was what every author trying to hit big after him copied, even if he himself is not the originator of it. He's the one who set the fantasy standard that everyone else tried to match.

So, you have to separate someone like Heinlein or Asimov from more modern authors whose writing style and approach to themes and story are radically different. You can see it in things like the differences in how Asimov did the original Foundation trilogy written during the golden age vs. the books he wrote later in the series during a different era, such as Foundation's Edge or Prelude to Foundation (setting aside the argument about whether the latter books were a cash grab). The writing and narrative styles are radically different.

Everything now is like the movies. You don't write a SF book that isn't part of a franchise series. It's tedious.

I enjoyed Sword of Shannara. The sequels were kind of ehhh....

This has been posted before, but you can get some decent free sci-fi and fantasy ebooks at the Baen Free Library. There aren't as many free fiction books as there once were, but it's worth taking a look. "1632" is especially good if you enjoy alternate history novels.

The most recent science fiction novel I enjoyed was [italic]the Peripheral[/italic] by William Gibson, who is cited earlier for [italic]Neuromancer[/italic]. His works have varied greatly, some being non scifi reflections on branding and marketing. I've read the sequel to [italic]the Peripheral[/italic], and it was okay.

Heinlein was a hack that had 1.375 good books in him.

More than I have in me, but incredibly overrated and questionable libertarian politics while seeming to rip off everyone up to Jules Verne.

I like the boy's adventure, early Heinlein, e.g., [italic]Citizen of the Galaxy[/italic]. It's the later sex-obsessed novels that are tedious.

Exactly. The juveniles are excellent classic SF. Even if Heinlein seems to be going the way of Steinbeck.

Fitz and the Fool series by Robin Hobb. Great books. George RR Martin admires her. And unlike Martin, Hobb knows how to finish her novels.

Duh-HOOOON!

Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles

Asimov: The Bicentennial Man (the movie is fantastic, BTW)

Make Room! Make Room! (book Soylent Green was based on)

I Am Legend by Matheson

the original: Frankenstein by Shelly

R67 is on anti-psychotics or should be. Hobb’s work is a deadening mix of boredom and nihilism. Everything is gloomy, all’s betrayal and disappointment. Stay well clear.

Illiterate Mary ^

Robin Hobb is an esteemed best selling author. She’s won a great number of awards and has considerable fan base. I greatly enjoy her books, because I’m not a pussy, unlike r70, who is faux traumatized twat.

Ah yes, r71, bestsellers and awards are definitely reliable indicators of quality…for some.

R72 Lol…senile combative grandpa. Keep in embarrassing yourself.

[quote]The Dragonlance Saga for 80s pulp fantasy extraordinaire. I hooked up with co-author Tracy Hickman twice. He’s a beefy, bearded, closeted Mormon

I always thought he was Jewish because of the Death Gate Cycle books.

The Rose Of The Prophet series is also good.

And the best Terry Pratchett novel is Thief Of Time

R73, so I’m a grandpa and a snowflake? Okay.

Engine Summer by John Crowley. A road trip in a future America. The last page makes you realize what you've read isn't what you thought.

Little, Big or, The Fairies' Parliament by John Crowley. About a strange family across multiple generations. Their home is just the other side of another world.

The Collapsing Empire series by John Scalzi. What happens when the Flow, the only way to travel faster than light starts shifting its locations?

Wanderers by Chuck Wendig is about sleepwalkers walking across the country to the same location and the horror happening to the rest of the world.

Here you go for contemporary SciFi. Candy House was excellent and a worthy follow up to Goon Squad. I’m still waiting for my copy of How High We Go in the Dark from the library.

Harry Harrison is the author of Make Room! Make Room! if anyone is looking for it.

[quote]I love Philip K Dick

Doesn't every card-carrying Datalounger love Dick?

Robin Hobb's novels get very good reviews. I found her novels searching many web articles listing fantasy novels with excellent reviews. She was almost unanimously on everyone's list. R70 is entitled to his or her opinion, even if it was way over the top. But don't let R70 discourage the rest of you.

Note that my description of Hobbs’ novels as boring and bleak was only rebutted by an argument to authority. Oh well.

Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson is my favorite. I know others prefer Snow Crash...

Among authors and books not previously mentioned:

Tad Williams do not get nearly the credit he deserves. Both the original Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn Trilogy and Otherland series were excellent.

Raymond Feist's original Riftwar saga. The subsequent books weren't nearly as good, and I stopped soon after a few.

Piers Anthony had several series that were good before he overused the ideas. The first three Xanth books are a complete story and fun. The Incarnations of Immortality series is pretty good although the final final reveal in the final book is a bit undewhelming. Bio of a Space Tyrant series was good.

LE Modessit's Recluse novels are solid through about the 7th or 8th book. As it's not one continuous story, you can stop at any time.

Dan Simmons Hyperion Cantos, of course.

Robert Silverberg's Majipoor books in the Lord Valentine Cycle.

Philip Jose Farmer - the Tiers World series.

Any Phil Farmer, really. Although the Riverworld stuff flamed out in annoying fashion.

Just block r71/r73.

^ Why? We can handle opposing opinions, unlike you, apparently.

Raymond Feist has an interesting stand alone novel, Faerie Tale. I recommend it if you like Celtic-flavored fantasy.

Recently I quite enjoyed Naomi Novik’s Ashkenazi-flavored Spinning Silver. Zigs when you think it will zag but the most distinctive bit for me was the author’s subversion of Jewish stereotypes. Cute folk fantasy novel.

R85 Raymond Fiest’s Faerie Tale is the best novel by him, though that’s not saying much. I liked The Riftwar books when I was a kid, but they do not hold up as an adult. I did enjoy Faerie Tale as an adult…”Tell me of this shining man!”

In a similar vein, I would highly recommend The Great Night by Chris Adrian. Titania and Oberon’s court comes to Buena Vista park in the present day San Francisco. Beautiful writing that is funny, absurd, erotic and heart breaking because the author was a fellow in pediatric oncology and his experiences with dying kids and their parents directly informs this novel. A literary novel, more than a genre fantasy novel. Puck is a right bastard…but somehow you can understand him when it’s all over. Titania and Oberon….well, they’ve seen some shit and their long lives have not prepared them for this situation. The main human character is a gay man. A very complicated gay man.

Thanks for the recommendation, r86. I'm intrigued and will look for that one.

Which books in the Dune series are worth reading?

Jurassic Park

All of Terry Pratchett's Discworld books - I think Lords and Ladies is my favorite -, Clive Barker's "Gyre" and much of H. P. Lovecraft, like The Hound or The Color Out Of Space.

R89: I like all 6 Dune books written by Frank Herbert. The first one is the best one. The second one, Dune Messiah, was perhaps the weakest in the series. The writing feels rushed. Maybe he had less time to finish this novel due to contractual obligations after his first flush of success? Herbert spent years researching and writing the first novel. By the fourth novel, he went in a different direction. I appreciate that he didn't repeat himself, that his creativity didn't follow a formulaic pattern.

Skip the Dune prequels and sequels (18 books) written by his son, Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. I think they are crap, a cash grab. The writing style is run-of-the-mill, nowhere near the level of the original series. There are plenty of inconsistencies and some elements contradict what Frank Herbert had originally set up in his stories.

R92 has it right.

In the Dune series, only the first two books involve Paul, right?

I believe Paul pops up in the 3rd book, but his son Leto is definitely the main character by then.