As a big SF fan, I read most anything I can lay my hands on, but when I
go to a book store to buy SF books, I never know what to get other than
a few of the mainstream authors.

I'd like to use this item to discuss some of the most interesting
SF novels you have read to help me make a shoping list.

44 responses total.

I'll start I guess...

I like hard science fiction a lot.  Some of the best I've ever seen
is written by Robert L. Forward.

His first book was Dragon's Egg.  I happened across this book on my
one and only downhill ski trips.  Being that I am a human snowball
on the slopes, I decided to spend more time reading and less time
freezing my butt off.  Basic premise of this novel is the discovery
of a neutron star that passes close enough to the earth that we send
a ship out to study it.  During the course of this study they find
life on the star.  The book includes a nice technical appendix on the
anatomy and history of the planet and how things adapt to (going from
memory) a gravity force of 6 million G's.

  On the other hand, I prefer "soft" science fiction.  My favorite
SF author is Theodore Sturgeon -- check out a book of his short
stories sometime (though beware that he has some pretty dumb stories.
His stuff seems to get better after he could sell things on the strength
of his reputation and write the sort of stuff the SF magazines of the
day generally wouldn't touch (instead of having to write stuff like
"Killdozer" (aieeee!!))

Recent discovery: _Tam Lin_ by Pamela Dean.

I can think of far too many to list here, but here are a few: 
Heorots Legacy by Niven, Pornell, & Barnes
Footfall       by  "   &    "
Swan Song      by Robert McCammon
Stinger        by      "
Leige Killer   by Robert Hinze
The entire Sten saga by Cole & Bunch
and many others.  If you want a longer list of suggestions mail me
and let me know what story type you're interested in.

(Ok guys, how about a brief description of stories...)
(Oh, and I use the word "guys" genderlessly in case the use offends some)

I'll try a synop of Footfall.

Annomily in Saturn ring = alien attack ship.

Aliens = Intelligent elephants with tenticle trunks (all the better to
         manipulate with my dear)

Attack = drop stuff from space to soften people up, then lands the
         four footed soldiers

Man's secret weapon = they finally build a particular type of reaction drive

A pretty decent story all round.

_Tam Lin_ is part of the series of fairy tales rewritten as SF, using
whatever form the author chooses.  Actually, though, _Tam Lin_ is based
on a song.  The song is transposed to a college campus in the early 70's.
The texture feels just right, just like people i really knew in college.
The book is hard to put down; very good reading.  Highly recommended.

        I've read all of the science fiction Jerry Pournelle has written
himself, as opposed to that he's edited by other people.  His stories
about John Christian Falkenberg ("The Mercenary", "Prince of Mercenaries",
there are several others) are excellent war science fiction.  Pournelle's
future history was the background for his collaborative work, with Larry
Niven, "The Mote in God's Eye", which you may have already read.  It's
also the background for all of Pournelle's solo stories.

        I like war science fiction, so I've read and enjoyed a lot of it.
Some more very good ones: Gordon R. Dickson's "Dorsai!", John Steakley's
"Armor", Joe Haldeman's "The Forever War" (by far his best book).

        A lot of people have never heard of Clifford D. Simak's Hugo award
winner, "Way Station".  This is emphatically NOT a war story; it's the
story of a backwoods Wisconsin man who secretly acts as the keeper of a
galactic way station.  It's a wonderful story.  You may have to go to the
used book stores to get it; I think it's out of print.

Or email me, I have a copy I'll lend.

Also try some David Drake.  Hammers Slammers is excellent, as is Forlorn
Hope.  Roland Greens Peace Company series is also good.  
      Infinity Hold  by Barry B. Longyear
What happens when you dump a ship full of hard-core convicts on a planet
full of hard core convicts?  

      BEST SUGGESTION:
      Any H. Beam Piper book

Lord klven of otherwhen
The cosmic Computer
Little Fuzzy
Space Viking

  Yes, "Way Station" is a good book..

Downbelow Station by C. J. Cherryh.

Yeeps!  I'm outnumbered by people with SF tastes that are way different
from my own.  Yeeps!

Not necesarily outnumbered.  I've only listed a few things off the
top of my head, not every type of scifi I enjoy.

(Looks like some good stuff here...)
I like other scifi types as well.  Love good storytellers such as
Card, etc.

_Blue Champaigne_ by John Varley.  It's a collection of short
stories, lots of interesting new ideas.  Varley's universe is
built on some different ideas from other people's SF universes,
and he can pack a *lot* of information into a single paragraph
and really make you think.  Highly recommended!

     If you like Card, then get "Maps in a Mirror" the complete
anthology of card's short fiction.  It includes
(among a host of other things) the
original Ender's Game, and something from the beginnings of
the Tales of Alvin Maker.
     If you like intrigue, read David Brin's "Startide Rising".  It's an
excellent combination of space opera, Dune-like political intrigue
and cetacean mysticism.  Basically a ship of humans
and genetically engineered dolphins has crashed on
an alien world, and every other race in the galaxy is in the
system, trying to find or destroy them; fighting
a huge space battle in the process.  There is a
sequel "The Uplift War." which is good
but lacks the genius of the original.
     Want something off-beat from Frank Herbert?  Try
"The Dosadi Experiment".  It's a sequel to an unremarkable book called
"The Whipping Star Incident" but
sufficient reference is made in  TDE so that you
don't really need the other.  Herbert's gift
for intrigue and incite into human culture in
lethal surroundings shows in this one too.
     If you're interested in a behind-the-scenes look at J. R. R. Tolkien, read
the "Letters by J. R. R. Tolkien" edited by
(you guessed it) Christopher Tolkien.  Very informative and
gives interesting perspectives, as well as some
Middle Earth and linguistic arcana.
     "Foucault's Pendulum" is science fiction.
     "Sword's Point" by Ellen Kushner is a marvelous fantasy
novel that makes use of several conventions
from the genre, then neatly turns them on their heads.  It
follows the life of Richard St. Vier, a
professional swordsman as he is entangled in the intrigue
to rule the city.  The language is stunning,
and the plot twists will leave you guessing.
     More later.

Hey, I ran into a copy of a "Jack the Giant Killer" retold in SF format--
in this case "Jackie" and she was just going through a major break-up with
a long term SO.  She wondered a bit if she was losing it when she began to
see things in a different way after finding a hat on one of her long walks
in the park...

Great retelling!  And now I hear that this may be a new genre?  Does
anyone have any titles or author's names?

I'll guess the author was Charles DeLint.  If so There's a sequel
to that book called Drink Down the Moon.  Many of DeLints books
in general use a classic folk lore/myth in a contemporary setting,
they're all woth reading.  I think Jack the Giant Killer was the
first of a group of books that retell some of the classic fairy
tales but I don't know what other authors are writing them.

Steven Brust did _The Sun, The Moon, and the Stars_, and another author
did _Snow White, Rose Red_.  THere were others.

Another retelling of a fairy tale that I thought was really good was
Beauty!  A retelling of the Sleeping Beauty story.

_Tam Lin_, although it's actually a folk rock song, is also part of the
series of fairy tales retold by modern sf authors.  The series was thought
up and editted by Terri Windling, who i know nothing about except that she
edits this really wonderful series.  I highly reccommend _The Sun, The Moon,
and The Stars_ and _Tam Lin_, which is by Pamela Dean.  (I'm still looking
for anything else by Pamela Dean.)  I bogged down reading _Jack the Giant
Killer_ because it started out seeming very similar to too many other SF
books i'd read recently.  _Snow White and Rose Red_ is sitting around here
somewhere, waiting to be read.

Definitely interesting stuff....

        Brust's "The Sun, the Moon and the Stars" is a *wonderful* book; as
good as his "Jhereg" series.  Not everything he's written is worth
reading, but that one is.

Accidentally stumbled on Verner Vinge's The Peace War...I'm not done yet--but
so far I'd recommend it.

re 23: i'd say _The Sun, the Moon and the Stars_ is even better than
the _Jherig_ series, but not as good as _Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and
Grill_, which is my very favorite Steven Brust book.

What else has Brust written?

Other Brust books  To Reign in Hell,   The Pheonix Guard (probably
one of the best he's written so far)  Brokedown Palace.

  Vinge's "The Peace War" is a very good book..  Has anyone read
"Marooned in Realtime"?  I looked at it and it looked like it wasn't
going to be worth the effort but I'd like to find out that I was wrong..

Lois McMaster Bujold: good (Spirit Ring) to great (Miles Vorkosigan
stories).  Great characters, great plots.

Katherine Kerr: Deverey novels.  Fantasy.  Far more of a real medieval
feel than Katherine "My lord archbishop, thanks for your input" Kurtz.

Mercedes Lackey: her Valdemar fantasy books are decent to very good.

     Rusalka by C. J. Cheryh is a neat book about pre-Christian Russia
when spirits ruled the vast Russian forests.  It's also a neat exploration
of the morals of those can control other people.  Well worth the buying.
     As is her Downbelow Station that Matthew recommended somewhere earlier.

actually, _Downbelow Station_ is by David Brin, i think.

Downbelow Station is definatly C.J. Cherryh

   "Downbelow Station" is C.J. Cherryh.  Who writes decent
SF and rather dry fantasy.

     Lens of the World by R. A. Macavoy.  This is a good one, though you
may find the ending a little predictable and/or anticlimactic.  Still and
all, it's certainly worth borrowing, or even buying the paperback.

   Glen Cook's Starfisher trilogy: Shadowline, Starfishers, and
Star's End.  BTW, bad news for Glen Cook fans -- he still has
absolutely nothing written on the next Black Company book.
"Glittering Plain"? (I have this from a fan who heard him
at a convention somewhere in the South a couple of weeks ago.)
But there will be another Garrett book out sometime this year.

   Bad book alert!  "Illusion" by Paula Volsky is an
historical romance set in the French Revolution -- set
to a fantasy world.  It even has Danton and Robespierre
(by other names).  If you're at all tempted to read this,
save your impulse for the real history, which is thrilling
enough.

   "Fools", by Pat Cadigan, is excellent SF of the
quasi-cyberpunk variety.  One of the best SF books I've
read in the last few years.  Earlier novel, "Synners",
was not as engaging.

Re #34:  Aargh.  I've been waiting for _Plain of Glittering Stone_  (think
that's the right title) for ages.  A new Garrett book will be nice, though.

     Chernevog: by C. J. Cherryh.  This is an interesting sequel to
"Rusalka" that I mentioned earlier.  It is a nice finish to the story,
worth buying in paperback, though I wouldn't go any further than that.

Snow Crash by Neal Stevenson was excellent.  Since cyberspace has been
pretty crowded lately, he set his cyberjaunt in the Metaverse.

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