So what're your fave SciFi & fantasy novels and/or authors?

I thought I better UP the quotient of actual Art and Lit content here since this forum is a little overrun with "tips and tricks" stuff (which I've mostly moved). :)

I use to really enjoy fantasy and SciFi, I think most of my fave authors were female, people like Mary Gentle, Joan D Vinge, Carol Nelson Douglas, Anne McCaffery, Tannith Lee, Jane Yolen, C L Moore, Mercedes Lackey, Elizabeth Moon etc. They tend to write with a practical humanist style, characters exhibit an earthy sensuality, it makes the fantastical worlds and situations all the more real and visceral.

SO some of my fave books and series by ladies are:

*Golden Witchbreed -Mary Gentle
-An epic story about the efforts of an Eathling diplomatic envoy to establish diplomatic ties with and find out about a mysterious alien world with a seemingly primitive yet ancient culture. It really got into the culture shock aspect and the idea of "going naive", being seduced by a different world and the pain of rejection from it.
*The Snow Queen -Joan D Vinge (but anything at all by her is brilliant)
-This was about the corrupt, decadent, dualistic world of Tiamat, where the Winter queen rules until her ritual death when the world is once again unreachable by the galactic trade routes (as is its cycle): all technology is destroyed and a new Summer Queen chosen, the people revert to simpler ways until the world is once more within reach of the trade routes, then it's time to reverse the process again. This concerned the corruption of the soul, the nature of innocence, the personal moral beliefs of the characters and what it takes to buy them, who can't be bought and why.
*The Rynth series -Carol Nelson Douglas (I like them all)
The destruction of a world and it's assumptions and the changes and alliances the leading characters must make within themselves and each other along the way in order to cope with their new environments and relationship situations. I liked this one for the surreal and dreamlike qualities of all the worlds contrasted with the character's sturdiness and yet the subtle growth and changes they went through to accommodate them as well as each other.
*Black Horses for the King -Anne McCaffery (ah, I like a lot of her Pern books quite a bit, the Doona series, Pegasus series, Crystal singer series and so on, but her short stories are something special).
-Black horses for the king featured short stories by an "Older" Anne McCaffery. She had really matured and grown a lot with age, it was nice to see her break away from the rigid structures of her various series and just see how she could write some stand alone stories again. He style was darker than usual, but also a lot "richer".
*Don't bite the sun/Drinking Sapphire wine -Tannith Lee.
-The story of a superficial young woman living in a hyper future world where death is optional and every whim is catered for: a world of eternal adolescence. But in a world of absolute freedom and freedom from responsibility, this young woman wants to grow up. Lee is always a darkly sensual writer, but the appeal here was the theme; growing up when you don't have to... the future dream-world and the society she created were simply joyous! A lot of great fun as well as very slightly darkly serious examination on the tiresome aspects of superficiality and the burgeoning of adulthood.

There are plenty of male authors I enjoy, but for now I'll just pick two; Philip G Williamson and Jack Vance.
Their writing styles are similar and that's what I love most about both: the dialogue! even when the lowliest peasants or petty thieves are engaged in conversation they speak with all the mannered courtesy of palace courtiers! It's absolutely beautiful to read! Some good stories by Williamson are his First World chronicles and Vance has many great books from his Lyonesse series, to Showboat World, The Grey Prince, his Dying Earth books etc.

So, anyone else have some faves and why?

hm, I've been reading Dune and it's pretty cool so far, but hmm... I hardly ever read sci-fi, but I'll admit that fantasy novels are like crack to me. like really cheap crack, at that. (it's kind of a guilty pleasure.)

I like~ Marion Zimmer Bradley's Mists of Avalon (sweeet!)

and basically anything by Mercedes Lackey. I admit she's not the best writer ever, but her stories are great. last week I read the "Jousters" series, and it was just fantab! I also like the "winds of change" series of hers, and the "oathblood" one (I read those yeeears ago though!!)

Tamora Pierce~ I really liked her stuff when I was younger. Especially the "Wild Magic" books... those were like a giant part of my childhood!!

JK Rowling~ I'm a pottermaniac!! although I admit, I always had a giant crush on sirius black. he sounded so cool and emo... I like had a minor heart attack when he died.

I can't think of any other fantasy authors I really like... ^^

I just started reading the Discworld books.

Terry Pratchett rocks.

Isaac Asimov, that was the man XD....

warren ellis

Piers Anthony's Xanth series: the puns.

I use to absorb piers anthony back in the days...i'm sure i still got his old books somewhere

I found The Snow Queen in this lady's basement and I read the first page and then I wanted to take it, but then I put it back down. I know what happens in these kind of scenarios. People in cloaks would have come out either demanding the book back or warning of some curse on the thing. I wanted to read it sooo bad.
The Neverending Story is an absolutely sexy novel. Translated even, I found myself forgetting to breathe, it's so beautiful. It also makes me want to go to Germany because there's a life-size statue of Falkor there. Please don't let the movie turn you from reading it.
I really loved the Hobbit. Moreso than anything else that Tolkien wrote. The trilogy consisted of, you know, let's walk, speak some language that the audience can and will learn because of the novels' early cult-like popularity and then run at each other with swords(for the most part). The Hobbit was a much light-hearted tale-- and also shorter-- as Tolkien wasn't quite as good at writing as he was at imaginating.
Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman are also on the list(especially when they collaborate).

Fantasy: Neil Gaiman. I've often felt that as a genre Fantasy is sort of stagnant because most published writers seem to want to be J.R.R. Tolkein. Neil Gaiman writes stories that are have modern world, rather than medieval settings, which I like because it's different. What makes his stories compelling to me is he takes an outlandish sort of theme (faeries, gods, magic, other worlds,) puts them in the world as we know it and effectively asks "What if this is the way things are and we just can't see it?"

Science Fiction: Phillip K. Dick. Science Fiction tends to be built around hypothetically possible ideas, what makes Phillip K. Dick stand out is that his stories tend to be more about the philosophical and ethical ramifications of those ideas. I also appreciate that he doesn't over-explain how things work as made-up technology goes, because that can really ruin a good story for me.

I could write a thesis on this topic. So, hard to focus and limit...

My favorite sci-fi novelist is probably Heinlein.
Friday (Is my favorite. She was genetically engineered, when genetically engineering wasnnnn't cooool (have to pretend I'm Barbara Mandrell.)
Some other Heinlein that's worth turnin' the pages:
Stranger in a Strange Land
Time Enough for Love
Starship Troopers

Those are the ones I recommend of his. (I do not worship him, or think of him in anyway other than an entertaining writer.) I also enjoy: Asimov (and when I was younger I dug Orson Scott Card.) As far as "fantasy." I don't really read a whole lot of that particular genre, so I'm not really qualified to give an opinion. (Horror, I'm your gal!)

Elizabeth Hayden and her Rhapsody series definately make up my favourite fantasy author and novel.

Admittably, her main character was a little Mary Sue-ish at times, but by god, the woman knows epic

Snow Crash

its a classic

China Meiville's "Perdido Street Station" - postmodern fantasy thats not only amazingly clever, but terribly well written. The literati are already laying claim to China - so read his stuff fast, while he still gets called a fantasy author!

tolkein, neil gaiman...i highly suggest neverwhere, which i am currently reading. gregory mcguire, spellcheck, he wrote wicked, son of a witch and several other reimagined fairy tales. r.a. salvatore, gary gygax, i found a copy the only copy i have been able to find, of the 1`st Greyhawk adventures book at a flea market about 15 years or more ago. it is one of my favorites of all time. i have never been able to find the sequels, i think they are out of print, if you have any clues let me know. i lost the copy i had in katrina....snap. timothy zahn's star wars books are good.

I absolutely ADORE The Pern Novels by Anne McCaffery,
I've become addicted to Harry Potter...
And I also like "The Crystal Flute" by AJ Kelly...

Hohoe, books! I've got a few things I like in those two genres, but I'll try to limit myself.

Fantasy is the genre I've been reading most of, so I shold be ablt to blabber on quite a lot about the books I love here.

-The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
I fell in love with the world. It's familliar yet different enough to be interesting. You can really feel that there's been put a lot of work into the world. Strangely enough I hate the two other books in the series.
-Abarat and the sequel Days of Magic, Nights of War by Clive Barker
It's the sheer hear-attack inducing amounts of ideas. And the challenge it sets keeping up with all the persons. Some people hate the books, but I love them. And the illustrations are beautiful.
-Smoke and Mirrors, Neverwhere and Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman
The man is brilliant. I've read everything I could get my hands on by him (aka all his novels and collections of shortstories) and I adore his humor and little observations about life. The reason I especially mention the three up there is because Neverwhere has the characters I like most at the moment, and because the short stories range from funny to disturbing. And short stories is a good way to figure out if you like a writer's style.

And I agree with mechanical_lullaby: The Neverending Story is very good. And Tolkien's children's books are much better than the long ones in my opinion.

SciFi seemed like a natural jump from fantasy, and I enjoy a good science fiction story now and then.

-Do Androids Dream of Electrical Sheep and Eye in the Sky by Philip K. Dick
The first is a classic. BladeRunner, its movie-adaption, is a movie I love but the book deals with a lot more. Like the best scifi out there you can't help thinking while and after you read it. The latter deals with how differently one persons sees the world from another quite brilliantly.
-Various collections of scifi shortstories. Sadly I can't remember what they were called or who wrote them.

I'm sure you've all heard enough from me at this point. I could go on and on...

If you've read most or all of Terry Pratchett's books and realized that they all sound sort of the same after a while (no offense to the guy, but, y'know, they kind of do), why not try Robert Rankin instead?

Stacey: Nice catch on China Mieville. I've read Looking For Jake, which was good-- I especially liked the story about the Via Ferae or whatever it was called. I also recently finished reading his first young adult offering Un Lun Dun. I think both its greatest strength and its greatest weakness came from how the book often emphasizes the setting, and the ideas behind the setting-- sometimes so much so that it obscures or stifles the action. But still a neat piece of imaginary travel writing. Plus the UnGun sounds like possibly the most useful literary weapon I've come across as of yet.

Also, I should probably recommend Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson's The Illuminatus! Trilogy here, too, since I recently finished it, but I don't know if I should, because 1. it's not for the novice reader or the family-friendly set; and 2. not many people realize that it is not a guide to a worldwide conspiracy (as it is usually advertised), but a send-up of '70s new-age culture by two then-Playboy editors. That being said, though, it's not half bad. A little cheesy, and it drags its ass in parts, but not half bad.

Also also, Piers Anthony sucks eggs.

Yeah Piers Anthony is a pooper.

Has anyone here read Gene Wolfe? He's probibly my favorite author ever. His works have real SUBSITENCE, you know? They require some work but the rewards are so worth it. And his next book is going to be a rip roaring pirate adventure. Last year he compleatly revised traditional quest fantasy with The Wizard Knight so I can't wait to see what he does with pirates.

Also, I've recently enjoyed Jeff VanderMeer, Mark Z. Danielewski, and Ursula K. Le Guin of all people. I never read A Wizard of Earthsea when I was a kid (I was too blinded by Drangonlance and Xanth) but recently I gave it a go and man, that book is amazing. It's so different from traditional fantasy tripe. A real gem.

Hm, I'm pretty easy as far as fantasy goes. I like it as long as it isn't isn't too heavy-handed or overdone. My favorite high-fantasy books though are the ones which acknowledge the stereotypes but warp them in some way. :)

Simon R Green has a great little series about two guards in a medieval city named Haven. Magic is fairly commonplace there and their adventures are sort of... crime-fantasy. There's usually some mystery to be solved and the complications arise from things like malfunctioning magic grenades or whatnot. The stories all follow the same pattern, but they're fairly funny and they always reach a point where the guards (Hawk and Fisher) have to just kill everything.

One lesser-known author I quite liked is Glen Cook who wrote a long series about the Black Company, a group of mercenaries in a medival setting who end up getting caught up in a war between a bunch of disagreeing gods (who are pretty messed up individuals). Magic is there but it's something for specialists only and no one really likes them because of all the superstition. I liked the books though because they're fairly technical and political - things like how the battles go, what's required by an army and its movement, what happens to land that an army goes through. Most of his later books have a heavier religious tone as they're in a region resembling India, so the religion-politics-war stuff gets pretty interesting. :)

Neil Gaiman has some nice high-fantasy stories (like Stardust) but I prefer his more 'realistic' fantasy like American Gods or many of his short stories.

As far as younger-themed books go, Garth Nix, JK Rowling, Philip Pullman of course (do you think they make some kind of "well that's a given" group?)

I'm far more picky about science fiction but I think that's because whenever authors start talking about the sciencey bits I feel like they sound pretentious. I just read a book of short stories by Ted Chiang though and quite liked them. His stories are kind of heavy on the science end, but the fun bit is that they're fake sciences, like the science of developing Hebrew names for golems/automatons in the Victorian age, or have to do with how learning alien linguistics let a woman see the future. There was a really great story called Hell is the Absence of God about a world where God and Heaven and Hell are all real and people see manifestations of angels all the time, but the manifestations are more like natural disasters and equally cripple or kill people as perform miracles.

The Dune series and many of the Arthur Clarke stories. I think they have influenced the sci fi novel I have written called Star Chosen. You can read a big chunk of it at http://joechiappetta.blogspot.com/2007/04/star-chosen-sci-fi-novel.html

I will probably be hated for this but the only sci-fi stuff I tend to enjoy is the Garland and Judith Reeves-Stevens Star Trek books (supposedly written by William Shatner). They're the ones who almost rescued Enterprise in its final season with some great writing (along with Manny Coto).

Some of their more recent work was, shall we say, less than inspired (how much can you possibly write about one set of characters and it not get tired after a while?) and I stopped following their work for the time being. I enjoyed the Spectre, Dark Victory and Preserver trilogy as well as Avenger.

I'm just picky about my sci-fi...and I'm a hopeless Trek nut. Sorry! ;)

I liked all of the red wall series, he was a good author and sadly I forgot his name.

Deviant Lynx
I liked all of the red wall series, he was a good author and sadly I forgot his name.

Brian Jacques.


Also, the Resident Evil books are surprisingly good. They're by no means amazing contributions to literature, but they're still entertaining books to read.