io9 on 10 Science Fiction Novels You Pretend to Have Read (And Why You Should Actuall

[Quelch]

I’m going to start catching up with:
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson

I’ve read:
Dune by Frank Herbert
Foundation by Isaac Asimov
1984 by George Orwell
First and Last Men by Olaf Stapledon
(It made a big impression on me as a young fella, I’ve been telling people about it ever since but they don’t listen)

I’m not a fantasy fan but I’ll give the rest of the ten a try later !

[Xanthe]

Read:

Dune by Frank Herbert
Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
Foundation by Isaac Asimov
1984 by George Orwell

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I second the previous recommendation for the inclusion of Pat Frank's "Alas, Babylon". Great book.

[charlesatan]

Originally Posted by GlenBarrington

"Davy"? "I Robot"? "A Canticle for Liebowitz"? "Farnham's Freehold"? "Stranger in a Strange Land"?

Some of the books in the original list. . . well, classics that should be read? I'm not so sure. Replace some of them with the books in my list and I think you'll have a better a better list and more fun reading.

Lists are always relative.

I like the io9 list better than yours for example. But that's personal taste and to each their own.

[mbovenka]

Originally Posted by specsavage

For straight SF--Heinlein, every single time. Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven's The Mote In God's Eye, almost anything by Charles Sheffield and James P. Hogan, David Weber, the first couple of books by Robert L. Forward, early David Gerrold (When Harlie Was One and The Man Who Folded Himself), and, of course, Harry Turtledove's Guns of the South.

Sounds like we share tastes . Except for Dune, that is; I loved it, and still do. It's on my reread-regularly list.

Agreed on Dhalgren. I liked Babel-17, but Dhalgren....

[JAcheson]

I've read Cryptonomicon, Dune, Foundation, 1984, First and Last Men and Dhalgren.

I'd never even heard of The Long Tomorrow or Infinite Jest.

Cryptonomicon was a good read, but I'm not sure it has stood the test of time yet.

I generally hate Big Fat Fantasy, so I am leery of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell.

Last and First Men is an odd choice. It's an odd book, kind of a high-level overview of civilizations rising and falling. It's definitely been influential, though. Kind of the "Ur-Silmarillion."

I read Dhalgren when I was in high school, and I cannot honestly remember a single thing about it.

If I had to recommend an Asimov book, it would probably be Caves of Steel, but I would want to reread it to make sure. A lot of his Robot stories have not aged well.

[Bricorn]

Originally Posted by AndrewH

Doesn't that describe 90% of all fantasy novels?

I think that sometimes the author has to make these to keep himself from making silly continuity mistakes while writing. Once they exist it's little effort to tidy them up for adding to the book, thus adding length and, for some readers, value.

[Joshua.P]

Originally Posted by JAcheson

If I had to recommend an Asimov book, it would probably be Caves of Steel, but I would want to reread it to make sure. A lot of his Robot stories have not aged well.

Really? I always found Asimov's short stories pretty much atemporal. A lot of them were chiefly logical conundrums at their core and still stand in their own, regardless of the time period.

[JAcheson]

Originally Posted by Joshua.P

Really? I always found Asimov's short stories pretty much atemporal. A lot of them were chiefly logical conundrums at their core and still stand in their own, regardless of the time period.

I reread I, Robot shortly before the Will Smith movie came out, and was surprised by how outdated the background and its concepts were.

One of the stories takes place on Mercury, where people ride around in spacesuits on the shoulders of big robots, steering the robots by the robots' over-sized ears.

In the modern day, the Three Laws and the anthropomorphic concept of AI that underlies them seem like a charming anachronism. Like Martian canals and the jungles of Venus. Maybe it's just me.

[twowheels]

Originally Posted by JAcheson

I reread I, Robot shortly before the Will Smith movie came out, and was surprised by how outdated the background and its concepts were.

[...]

Like Martian canals and the jungles of Venus. Maybe it's just me.

The funny thing is, though, having grown up reading these "quaint" science fiction stories, anything that doesn't have those anachronisms just doesn't "feel right" to me... like it's not "real sci-fi". :-)

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by twowheels

The funny thing is, though, having grown up reading these "quaint" science fiction stories, anything that doesn't have those anachronisms just doesn't "feel right" to me... like it's not "real sci-fi". :-)

Yep. I think it's quite unrealistic to expect older stories to have current science in them, but if the story stands on it's own it shouldn't matter. Take ERB's Mars stories for example.

[carld]

Originally Posted by Rockbobster

I would prefer to put Pat Frank's Alas Babylon on the list.

That was a great book, but I don't think it's widely enough known to be on an "Oh, I read that" list.

[Giggleton]

I got through half a chapter of gravity's rainbow awhile back, I suppose I could pick it up again lol!