Kudos' to Celti for the suggestion, here's your chance to list your favorite science fiction books. Lord of the Rings is generally regarded as fantasy, but would still be accepted as a valid selection. Here's my selection for the top 10 Sci-Fi novels, in no particular order;

Stranger in a Strange Land
Childhood's End
Dune
Lord of the Rings
Flowers for Algernon
Earth Abides
Fahrenheit 451
Lucifer's Hammer
Man in the High Castle
Alas, Babylon
On the Beach * - I know, that's eleven, so sue me.

I tended towards the apocalyptic scenario's, which may seem a bit maudlin, but the stories not only showed man at his worse, but also portrayed characters with incredible tenacity, courage and fortitude, qualities which could only inspire a sense of hope in the reader. The list could have easily been twice as long, as I practically devoured science fiction when I was younger, but no one else would have been able to list their favorites.

Magikman

I'd add to that list with:

CONTACT - Carl Sagan

&

COMMUNION - Whitley Streiber (arguably a work of fiction or a narrative on real life events)

Don't forget:

2001: A Space Odyssey ( Arthur. C. Clarke )

time to burst the bubble, as they say..


The Lord of the Rings is a fantasy not a science fiction

Thought I had covered that small detail in my original post.

I was thinking that if this thread inspired enough responses and everyone listed about 5 to 10 favorites, you'd get an idea of which novels were the most popular overall. I didn't want to leave out LOTR, given its current status and interest. Besides, I always figured fantasy novels to be nothing more than a sub-division of the Sci-Fi category. No big deal, either way.

Magikman

I'd like to add First Contract by Greg Costikyan.

"n First Contract, Costikyan has resurrected an idea from some long-forgotten shoebox, a novella originally titled "Sales Reps from the Stars." A savvy CEO, a power-suit-wearing, proper Indian businessman by the name of Johnson Mukerjii, gets screwed by an alien invasion. The ETs want to do business, except we're the Aztecs and they're the Spaniards, and we can kiss our gold good-bye. But Mukerjii, after losing everything--his millions, his San Jose manse, his leggy wife--figures out how to beat the aliens at their own game in a characteristically Costikyan way: by producing exports in the form of cheesy, shoddily constructed spaceship beverage accoutrements:


"Made in Japan," "Made in Taiwan," and now--I gestured grandly--"Made on Earth."
Fans of imaginative fiction would do well to keep tabs on Costikyan. --Paul Hughes" Excerpt from www.amazon.com

MM Thank You...

I will go with a mixyure of the two genres/ authors as there are so many to chose from then saves arguments


Anything by Tolkien< >

Anne Macaffery: Damia.

Raymond. E. Fiest: Magician.

Frank Herbert: Dune

William Gibson: Neuromancer.

Philip.K.Dick : Do androids dream of electric sheep.

Philip Jose Farmer: To your scattered bodies go.

Charles de Lint: Spirit Walk.

Ursula le Guin: the Earthsea books.

H.G.Wells: the time Machine/ island of Dr Moreau/ War of the Worlds.

See told you I was spoilt for choice