Recommend Me Some Science Fiction Books!

I've never really read any science fiction before (unless you'd classify Kurt Vonnegut into this distinction), and I'm assuming books such as Ender's Game and Dune are among some books to check out. The extended universe of Star Wars seems to be somewhat insane, based on occasional Wikipedia browsing, but how is Heir to theEmpire?

Some more recent titles would also be appreciated.

Hard sci-fi or sci-fi in general?

@sergio: Either. I'm up for checking out anything.

Rho Agenda Trilogy. Probably some of the best books I have ever read (granted I haven't read that many books but still). The Second Ship is the first of the trilogy.

• Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons
• Blindsight by Peter Watts
• the culture series, particularly The Player of Games and The Use of Weapons by Iain M Banks

I should probably know more than that... Oh! Anathem by Neal Stephenson.

edit: And oh! Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy!

Gaunt's Ghosts by Dan Abnett. Set in the Warhammer 40k universe. Or the Eisenhorn trilogy, same writer, same universe :)

@breadfan: You've never read Dune? Get off the internet right now and go read it. That is probably my favorite book ever.

Anything by Phillip K Dick

Legacy of Heorot & Beowulf's Children, The Integral Trees & The Smoke Ring, Ringworld or really any number of great books by Larry Niven.

Slaughter House Five by Kurt Vonnegut is great. Its not sci-fi in the Philip K Dick sense but it definitely has a sci-fi element to it.

I just read those. Loved it.

Otherland by Tad Williams. 4 books, one epic sci-fi/cyberpunkish tale.

Ready Player One, not really over the top Sci-Fi , but still a fairly decent nerdgasm.

Stranger in a Strange Land

by Robert A. Heinlein

One of my all-time favorites. Everytime I see that GROK production company logo in the credits of Game of Thrones, it makes me hope I'll get to see a HBO adaption of the material, or a movie.

Horus Rising by Dan Abnett (Warhammer 40k)

Off Armageddon Reef by David Weber

Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke

Also Dune. Read Dune. The other 5 Dune books by Frank Herbert are cool too.

Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey. Actually written by two guys one of which was George R.R. Martin's assistant.

Dune? Dune. Duuuuune!

Ever sense I've been introduced to Dune at the age of 13, I've been re-reading the series every year, and it still hasn't gotten stale some 13 years later.

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman.

Even if you ignore the whole "obvious allegory of the Vietnam War" thing (which is interesting on its own), it's a classic of hard sci-fi.

If you'd rather something near-future and speculative, I really recommend Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood (although I'm sure there are plenty of people who would disagree with me on that).

Or just read some William Gibson, man, I dunno.

I suggest you start at first, read works of H. G. Wells. Then Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and then Terry Pratchett. Most of them are very soft sci-fi works, I wouldn't suggest hard sci-fi that's a bunch of nerd crap. You might also want to look into Star Wars expanded universe, it seems to have everything.

huhhhuhuhuhuhhhuhuh...

A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge. Seminal space opera with great concepts and great aliens, one of my favourite books ever. His characterisation wasn't too great in this book, but he redressed that by going more character-focused in his next book set in that universe, A Deepness in the Sky.

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson is where it's at for cyberpunk, imo. Although unrelated in style, I've also always suspected that Kojima read this while creating MGS1, what with the Raven character and the references in both stories to Aleutians.

I recently checked out the first 3 books of Iain M. Banks 'Culture' series and I'd say The Player of Games is the best of those. Personally I'm not a fan of Dan Simmons.

You know, there are a few really quite excellent books set in the Warhammer 40K universe; I would recommend:

• Eishenhorn
• Gaunt's Ghosts (there are a few of these)
• Ciaphas Cain (HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!)

There are also a few from the Horus Heresy series specifically, you don't need to read all of them to get the story as a lot of them just happen to take place around the same time:

• Horus Rising
• Fulgrim
• Legion
• The Thousand Sons

Solaris, great book, although if you saw the movie it may spoil it for you.

I swear I should copy and paste these somewhere, to stop having to remember/retype them again when duders ask for suggestions now and again :P

• Robot Series - Isaac Asimov (a good primer on AI related sci-fi, also very light stuff so easy to start getting into sci-fi with)
• Foundation Series - Isaac Asimoc (separate from above, but are in fact in the same universe timeline, so it's cool if you know the references)
• Night's Dawn Trilogy - Peter F. Hamilton (my personal number one sci-fi trilogy)
• Fallen Dragon - Peter F. Hamilton (good if you want to check out his style without getting into the bigger trilogies)
• Commonwealth Saga/Void Trilogy - Peter F. Hamilton
• Dune (original trilogy, books 1,2,3) - Frank Herbert (careful Dune books are a bit on the heavy side, but worth it)
• Culture Series (there are a lot) - Iain M. Banks, (if you want a more introductory one go The Player of Games, but the pinnacle is imo Excession)
• can recommend some Russian sci-fi but don't think it'll be relevant for you

PS: staunchly against Arthur C. Clarke, 2001 Space Odyssey is a bad book, but that's just me

Like a few others I would say Dune is a great place to start, I also recommend:

• Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke
• Gateway by Frederik Pohl
• Ringworld by Larry Niven
• The Redemption Ark Trilogy by Alastair Reynolds

Somewhat ashamed of that last one.

Awesome, thanks for the recommendations.

While I'm sure you're going to get plenty of good recommendations on here, I just want to point out that H.G. Wells and Jules Verne both wrote some pretty good shit back in the day. War of the Worlds and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea are their best known works, respectively, and are probably good places to start.

Foundation, I Robot, Altered Carbon, and maybe Ender's Game.

In that order.

Anything Halo ever.

Ghost of Onyx and Fall of Reach are a must-read for Halo fans though.

Oh, and Star Wars novels. Those have like, an 80% chance of being good whichever novel you select.

I've been meaning to read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I'll have to give that a read.

I tend to avoid video game related books, but has anyone read the Starcraft books?

hard sci fi: rendevous with rama or childhood's end by arthur c. clarke

space opera: dune series.

also h.g. wells wrote a ton of great stuff you probably already know about.

that's about all i got.

The Diamond Age and Anathem by Neal Stephenson are both pretty good (although Diamond Age has a REALLY unsatisfying ending and Anathem gets a little up its own ass in places with its renaming of basic philosophical and scientific concepts). Also, while far more pulpy than Stephenson's stuff, Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton is one of my favorite books of all time.

If you want something a bit more heavy, Neuromancer.

If you want something more fun, Snow Crash.

@slay3r1583 said:

This.

This.

And this: Dune.

If you want something not as serious (or as awesome) as Dune, try Ender's Game. The rest of the Ender's Game book are not that good though.

I don't recommend Anathem as an introduction to Neal Stephenson. Read Cryptonomicon first. If you enjoy it, then Anathem should appeal as well. Stephenson isn't for everybody. Some find him offputting. I am a big fan of most of his stuff but I understand the reasons why some people don't care for him.

Few not mentioned yet:

Eon by Greg Bear

A Fire Upon The Deep and A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge

The Scar by China Mieville - this is not sci-fi... exactly. well it is and it isn't. yeah. it's good. steampunk environs with umm, other, stuff. just read it.

The Mote in God's Eye by Niven and Pournelle

The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester - I strongly and emphatically recommend this book to all sci fi novel enthusiasts. It is goddamn slap you in the face awesome +1.

Foundation trilogy by Asimov - Mandatory reading.

ASOIAF

Many I would recommend were already mentioned, so I'll just add Red Mars.

Slaughterhouse Five is pretty good.

Altered Carbon is awesome

Stephen Baxter writes some pretty hard Sci-Fi, including mega-stellar (seriously, huge) constructs and massive timescales.

I read this one:

I really enjoyed it, and it's a part of a series that stands on its own from start to finish.

Each of the books share common themes (races, universal events, characters) but you can read them in any order. The collection is called Xeelee Sequence.

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and Metro 2033 By Dmitry Glukhovsky ( I much prefered it to the game) are two books I would highly recommend.

I'll try to remember what I've liked but some have been mentioned here:

The Stars My Destination & The Demolished Man - Alfred Bester

A Fire Upon the Deep - Vernor Vinge

The Foundation Trilogy - Isaac Asimov

Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card

Miles Vorkosigan Books by Lois McMaster Bujold, I seriously can't recommend these enough. I read through most of them twice and it was just as good the second time around. Before this stories there are three short stories detailing how his parents met in Cordelia's Honor. Also a good book. Miles is their son and he is born with severe defects do to a poison gas attack against his family. The dude grows up into one ballsy dude. I think I'm going to go read these again.

Enjoy!

< - One of my favs.

I've also been meaning to get around to reading Ringworld which apparently Halo drew a lot of inspiration from.

Did no one seriously suggest UBIK?

Read it.

Is this before or after Hodor commandeers Stannis Baratheon's mech?

Give 1984 a try if you never read it. Its not exactly sc-fi, but sorta in that ball park and i think everyone should read it once.

Maybe not for everyone, but I found Carl Sagan's Contact pretty fascinating. I know Ray Bradbury hated the term sci-fi, but I think The Martian Chronicles and a bunch of his other novels and short stories are worth reading as well. Neuromancer has already been mentioned, how about Neil Stephenson's Snowcrash?

An old time classic that I still think holds up quite well is H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds from 1898.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, 1984, The Neuromancer,

Dune is a great read. The only problem is that the series gets sillier/stupider as it goes along. First two books though are really solid. Third one is good but has some issues(that is when it starts down the crazy stuff. After that it gets pretty silly.