The 10 sci-fi/fantasy books that mean the most to me

[axordil]

Me too. I have a draft I need to get ready for critique in twenty days.

[Inanna]

Good luck

[Passdagas the Brown]

Leaving Tolkien aside, who sits on a throne high above the clouds, I would have to say that Ursula LeGuin's "The Lathe of Heaven" and "Earthsea" are my #2, Wind in the Willows is #3, Lord Dunsany's work collectively sits at #4, and Dune is #5. Otherwise, for that "trip into another world" fix, I read far more historical non-fiction and historical fiction than I do fantasy. Even the top fantasists miss something essential which I have difficulty putting my finger on. The "depths of space and time" they attempt to give me a glimpse of just aren't deep enough to draw me in, I suppose.

Call it "spoiled by Tolkien," if you will.

[kzer_za]

This isn't a favorites list, just a few thoughts on things I've read that may or may not have been mentioned in the topic:
- I love Wind in the Willows! I saw a play of it a couple years ago.

- I also like Harry Potter and think it will stand the test of time. Not a superfan though, and will probably never see the movies.

- I just don't quite get Dune. I read the first two books and liked them somewhat, but couldn't really connect with them. Herbert knew how to build a world, but every character is so completely absorbed in Byzantine politics that none of them are really likable. They don't feel human. I think I might have actually liked the second book better? I thought things got downright stupid in the third book and quit the series.

- George RR Martin's Song of Ice and Fire books I loved when I was younger. I still think there's some talent there, especially in the first book and the next two to a lesser extent, but he tries too hard to be edgy and the story has clearly spiraled out of his control. Haven't read the fifth book yet or seen the TV series.

- I loved reading Star Wars novels in middle/high school...kind of embarrassed about it now. I wonder if any of them would hold up as decent fiction?

- It feels a little weird classifying Vonnegut as sci-fi, but I guess he does fit there...at any rate, Slaughterhouse-Five is good. Breakfast of Champions, which is both more "realistic" and more absurd at the same time, is my favorite though. I liked his short story collection too, but didn't really like Cat's Cradle.

- Narnia I liked as a kid, but I do agree with Tolkien that it is overly didactic (even though my religious views are not far from Lewis's) and its world is pretty ad hoc compared to Middle Earth. I might reread it at some point, it has been a very long time. I haven't read the Space Trilogy. Till We Have Faces is CS Lewis's best fictional work, I think, and his own favorite of everything he wrote.

- Outside of Tolkien, my tastes nowadays tend toward literary fiction...I haven't read enough sci-fi/fantasy I liked as an adult to make much of a list. I guess I'm a snob. So I can't comment on much else in the speculative genres.

EDIT: Forgot Douglas Adams! I am of course a fan. Never really read Mostly Harmless though.

[Frelga]

Well, I'm sorry to go all hipster on you, but you probably never heard of the SF/fantasy I grew up with. Which is a shame - Soviet SF rocked hard.

But I have to start with
1. Jules Verne, the grandfather of steampunk, the writer who invented the submarine. The Mysterious Island was my favorite, the hymn to human ingenuity and persistence.
2. Following in Verne's footsteps, Alexander Belyayev, The Amphibian Man - a brilliant surgeon gives a sick boy the ability to breathe under water, but his fate is grim in the world of capitalist greed. It didn't hurt that the movie cast was hawt (google it!).
3. Efremov, The Blade of a Razor. A combination of epic international treasure hunt with a spy story, mysterious crystals, several pairs of lovers, happy or not, the highlight of this novel is the extensive lecture of why humans find certain traits attractive.
4. Bradbury, Martian Chronicles
5. Asimov, Steel Caves and Naked Sun
6. The Strugazky brothers, The Picnic on the Roadside, on which Tarkovsky's Stalker is loosely based. Haunting.
7. Should have been up at the top - Bulgakov, Master and Margarita. The story of Devil visiting Moscow in 1930, the writer who is working on the story of Pontius Pilate, and the woman who loves him. There are some decent English translations, which I highly recommend.
8. Kir Bulychev, the Alice Selezneva series. Happy space and time travel with a schoolgirl and her xenobiologist father. More fantasy than science fiction, but remarkable for the main character being a girl in a perfectly matter-of-fact way. Not a single twisted ankle, either.
Last but not least, 9 and 10, Tolkien and Pratchett.

[Smaug's voice]

Well, I'm sorry to go all hipster on you, but you probably never heard of the SF/fantasy I grew up with. Which is a shame - Soviet SF rocked hard.

I echo this as well, though with an 'Indian' twist. So most of you would have no idea of what I am talking about.

-Jules Verne. I adore almost all of his work and most of all his imagination. Around the World in 80 days, Destination Moon, Round the Moon, The Mysterious Island, the Journey to the Centre of the Earth and Dr.Jekyll Mr.Hyde. "Jekyll" and "Round the Moon" (vastly underrated) are my favorite works by him. The previous, a testament on how good and evil both reside in every being. And the latter for developing my interest in astronomy and space (along with the Tintin books). Plus, predicting a moon-journey two hundred years before the actual event is just ingenious (and I fall short of words here).

- Next will follow H.G.Wells. Island of Dr.Moreau - genetically modified animals as monsters. The War of the Worlds - the first and the best Alien-invasion story. And my favorite, The Time Machine.

- Satyajit Ray. He's mostly known as India's greatest director but he was an equally good writer. There is substantial proof, that Spielberg's E.T. is a rip-off of one of SR's stories. All his 64 sci-fi short-stories and a few novels on the character Professor Shanku - are just a classic example of a scifi-fantasy blending.

- Jayant Narlikar. Another prominent Indian writer who wrote mostly on UFOs and aliens. One of his best writings includes a depiction of the life of aliens under the surface of Mars and we humans - who they see as aliens - disturbing their land with mechanical probes. It's a really insightful read.

- Annie McCaffrey. a.k.a. Dragonlady.
I have only read her Dragonriders series. But I can honestly say that if there ever was a made-up world that could come close to Tolkien, it would be her "Pern". It is another unique blend of Scifi-fantasy. There are dragons but these dragons are virtually, genetically modified beasts. The main protagonist of the series - the Thread - are actually inanimate spores that rain on the planet every four hundred years or so and destroy every vegetation leaving the land barren. I soon plan to take up her "The Ship who..." series as well.

[JewelSong]

You know, I have had the Pern series recommended to me by several people and I have downloaded some of the books onto my Kindle…but I just could not get into the story or the characters. It's odd, because it seems like it is something I *should* like.

[Primula Baggins]

If you want to give it one more try, Jewel, I highly recommend the "Harper Hall" trilogy—I think they're called Dragonsong, Dragonsinger, and Dragondrums (I don't have them handy). They are shorter, more YA-oriented, but they focus on music and the Harper Hall, and I enjoyed them very much. I think you might, too. The main character, a young woman named Menolly, is very well drawn.

As for the rest of them, I haven't been drawn in by any of the books after the first three (ending with The White Dragon; I don't know how they may have been regrouped and renumbered in the years since they first came out). Later ones that I've tried fall into the "okay" category, some edging into "life is too short."

[Smaug's voice]

You know, I have had the Pern series recommended to me by several people and I have downloaded some of the books onto my Kindle…but I just could not get into the story or the characters. It's odd, because it seems like it is something I *should* like.

I myself found it difficult to get into the story at first and was just reading the first book (i.e.Dragonflight) for the sake of finishing it. This was more or less the case I guess because the characters were still evolving and there was not much of a plot. Quite similar to my first experience of The Silm. But it improved much in the later half and ended in a great twist.
The second and third books, Dragonquest and The White Dragon are quite brilliant, imo. Her best works. Not only the characters become more "humane" but even dragons have better personalities.
The Harper-Hall trilogy is equally well-written though I won't suggest you to read them first as you may find some events a bit confusing (the HH trilogy is basically a different telling of the same story in Dragonflight/Dragonquest/White Dragon). I agree it goes downhill after that but I still find most of the books quite entertaining if not great.

Jewel, you should give it another try, or atleast try to finish the first book and see if the sequels draws you in.
Though, I would say, it may not be for everyone's tastes.

[Alatar]

So the recommended reading order is

Dragonflight
Dragonquest
The White Dragon

followed by

Dragonsong
Dragonsinger
Dragondrums

Is that right? I thought about reading these before but couldn't find a recommended reading order. At least, I found loads of conflicting ones!

[Smaug's voice]

That's about right.

This is also an alternate reading order combing the original and the HH-trilogy. Since Dragonsong and Dragonsinger take place after Dragonflight and Dragonquest and just before The White Dragon, there won't be any problem in this order as well.

Dragonflight
Dragonquest
Dragonsong (HH)
Dragonsinger (HH)
The White Dragon
Dragondrums (HH)

[Primula Baggins]

Interestingly, Smaug's voice, Amazon has exactly the same ordering, and I think it would work well. You'd understand what was happening offstage throughout, and you'd be familiar with some of the otherwise essential characters who just have cameos in the Harper Hall books. And (I found) the HH books in return gave character dimension to the "major" books in the series.

However, the Harper Hall books are not available on Kindle. Ours are boxed up inaccessibly with other books I won't be able to get to for the foreseeable future, and I was figuring I could justify buying them for my Kindle, but no. Phooey.

[Smaug's voice]

Interestingly, Smaug's voice, Amazon has exactly the same ordering, and I think it would work well. You'd understand what was happening offstage throughout, and you'd be familiar with some of the otherwise essential characters who just have cameos in the Harper Hall books. And (I found) the HH books in return gave character dimension to the "major" books in the series.

I first read the books in the order Alatar mentioned above so I have a biased preference for that.

But IAWY that probably the alternative order would be better. It just gives more personality to two my favorite characters - Robinton and Menolly (especially the latter). They do what the whole Old Forest episodes does for FotR.

[yovargas]

Posting this here cuz it came up when I searched for Pern....

Just finished reading Dragonflight, the first in Anne Mcafree's famous dragon series. Unfortunately I thought the book was quite bad with very little to recommend for it. If anyone here has read it, would you say there's much chance of me liking the next books if I disliked the first?

[Inanna]

I just tried reading dragon flight too. Awful. I have read the later books, many years ago. I remember enjoying them then. Not sure if I would now.

[Impenitent]

I think the Pern books are for the young and naive. I doubt you'll enjoy the, yov. For me, the enjoyment is more like childhood nostalgia (like revisiting Enid Blyton ).

Sent from my SM-G965U1 using Tapatalk

[Maria]

Nope, if you didn't like the first book, you won't like the others.
I like most of the series, but the last ones written were pretty bad.

[Inanna]

I think the first one was *quite* bad too. I'd dipped my toe in somewhere in the middle, when they were already settled on Pern, and dragons were hatching etc. I remember enjoying them. I could not get through the first one last year.

[Maria]

Oh, I meant the first ones written, "Dragonflight" and "Dragonquest" and later "Dragonsong" and "Dragonsinger". I also like "White Dragon" and "Dragondrums". The rest are pretty forgettable.

[elengil]

Tolkien, obviously.
All of it. Though the cartoons were my first introduction to it, the world Tolkien built has been a great influence on me, even beyond his Middle Earth writings, such as Smith of Wootton Major. I have been reading/re-reading The Silmarillion and finding either I never read the whole thing way back when or I utterly forgot some parts of it. The re-read (especially at this point in my life) has been a wonderful experience in getting a deeper understanding both of Tolkien himself but also the fantastical genre he wrote in.

1984 and Animal Farm - George Orwell
Can't say much more, I'd say these almost go without explanation. Very helpful in opening my eyes to some of the ways the world and society function (or, disfunction).

The Myst series by Rand Miller, Robyn Miller, and David Wingrove
Yes, the same Myst as the video games, they also crafted a series of books. The first one, especially, but I enjoyed all of them. I love the grandmother who has raised her grandson and how she always says "What do you see, Atrus?" in teaching him to see not just the world itself but his place in it. I love how that was portrayed.

The Fifth Season (and the subsequent Broken Earth trilogy books) - N. K. Jemisin
It took me a bit to get into the first book and understand it, it jumped a bit and did not hand-hold the reader so it was difficult to follow at times. But once I was able to get into it and get into the world, I have come to deeply appreciate this series. The experience I had read it echoed my experience reading Lord of the Rings for the first time. The world seems so deep and expansive, the reality of the systems put forth felt entirely new. It really kind of crept into my bones. I love it.

Wise Child - Monica Furlong
Now that I've managed to hunt down the name of the book at last I can add it. I remember being absolutely enthralled by this book when I read it (in middle school.) So much so that now that I’ve found it again I’ll be buying it and it’s prequal. I was surprised to see that the author was not a prolific novelist, but she did write a number of other non-fiction books, such as Visions and Longings: Medieval Women Mystics which probably helped with the sense of reality this novel gives.

Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
These are the first novels I remember reading on my own. They may not have been, but they certainly stick in my memory. They lent a sense of magic to the world and cemented my love of fantasy early on.

Dragonlance Chronicles – Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
Elentári mentioned these, and I certainly spent a very large chunk of my teen years reading these books. I had dozens if not more. I am still kicking myself that I let my sister sell them ages ago. I doubt I would enjoy reading them the same way today, but as many of these books, they were influential at the time I read them. I believe they wrote other books in the same world but not necessarily that series that I also read.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (the whole 5-book trilogy) - Douglas Adams
Mostly I just loved the books. Nothing earth-shattering or deeply spiritual. I just loved the books. Also read some of his others, like The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul Perhaps I err in adding it since I can’t exactly say it was influential, but I suppose one can hardly read an entire series by an author without being influenced in some way - same as Dragonlance, really.

The Discworld Novels – Terry Pratchett
Monstrous Regiment was my first introduction, which was a little odd as it relied somewhat on the reader already knowing who some of the characters at the end were, and the end did get a little bizarre for me, but I still loved the book and went on to enjoy many, many more of his novels. The Hogfather is still my favorite 'holiday' novel/movie, and Going Postal actually feels excessively relevant today what with the USPS issues going on, and probably helped formulate a rather affectionate view of the Post Office (helped along immensely by the 99% Invisible podcast episodes on both the USPS in general but also the way it shaped and even in some ways made possible the revolutionary war.) Overall I would say the post office probably inspires a far greater sense of patriotism for me than most people would find reasonable.

Magic’s Pawn (maybe?) - Mercedes Lackey
It’s tricky to add this one to the list. I don’t actually remember which book it was, though based on the cover I am leaning toward this one. But I could be entirely wrong. I remember two things about the book: a person got like bonded to a horse in such a way that if one died the other died or suffered or something like that. And it was the first book I had ever read that had homosexual characters. I would definitely credit the book as being influential in helping me through what seems to be the default “ew gay icky” that a lot of people come with in this country. I finished the book, I didn’t read any others by her (though in writing this I really need to remedy that), but it was definitely an influence on young teen me, and I am quite glad I don’t suffer that bigotry anymore.

The White Mountains (The Tripods Books) - John Christopher
First read to us by our 5th grade teacher. I re-read them again some time ago, still love these books. Well written, engaging, and just an interesting world built.

I am certain I could change up quite a bit of this list were I home and looking at my bookshelves. But just going on what I can think of off the top of my head - which is probably a good gauge for how influential something is - that's my list.

Other Mentions



Dragondoom - Dennis L. McKiernan
One of my sisters gave me this book as a Christmas present over 20 years ago. And that was also the last time I read it. Even at the time I found some aspects of the book a tad ridiculous, or felt overly like trying to imitate Tolkien, but I still enjoyed the books. One line that sticks in my memory (and is one that felt almost like a copy/paste of Tolkien) was spoken in the aftermath of a battle to the young heir, (Not a direct quote but as close as my memory will provide) "When you mourn, mourn for your foe as well; for they also leave bereft behind, as well as broken dreams."

I can't say the book was overly influential, I suppose it was a perfectly good book and the emotional investment I give it was because my sister gifted it to me. But it still stands out in my mind. In fact, I have enjoyed every book my sister gave me, which also includes City of Bones by Martha Wells – of which I remember almost nothing except that one character (either an alien or some kind of genetically divergent human race?) had a pouch like a kangaroo almost and used it to hide some important relic. I should re-read this one, too.

Rendezvous with Rama - Arthur C. Clarke
Excellent book, loved the reality of it as well as the storyline. I never read the subsequent books but I truly enjoyed this one. I didn’t list it in the 10 because while I enjoyed it thoroughly I don’t feel it really left much of an influence on me.

Michael Crichton, but specifically Eaters of the Dead and Sphere
Again, not exactly influential, but I thoroughly enjoyed them. I suppose I must confess that fantasy as a whole was far more influential on me than sci-fi.

Alatar mentioned Watership Down, and oddly I never would have thought to put that in a fantasy list. I’m not sure what I would have thought it would be classified as, but if asked for fantasy books that just wouldn’t have occurred to me, though I loved the book (again, though, was introduced first via the cartoon.)

The Xanth Series - Piers Anthony
I started reading some of these books ages ago. The books I read were entertaining enough to finish, but I never really got further into the series than just a couple of books. I don’t know whether I just wasn’t interested enough to pick up another one or was distracted by some other book. I mention it because the ones I read were good but didn’t really offer any lasting impression or influence.

I read the Shannara series, though I can’t really put them down as a recommendation. I recall reading perhaps the first three? I’m pretty sure I got bored with them. I watched part of the series they made on Netflix and honestly almost nothing at all sparked any kind of memory, and I didn’t even finish the series. I guess this would make this a dishonorable mention? LOL I can’t say they were bad, just wholly unmemorable and currently entirely unengaging.