Sci-Fi Authors and stories....

[theshire]

Dune's a classic, although I personally found it a bit dull.

But I must recommend the Night's Dawn Trilogy by Peter F. Hamilton - it is fucking amazing. Each book is over a thousand pages long, and some of the action is mindblowing.

The books are:

The Reality Dysfunction
The Neutronium Alchemist
The Naked God

I believe in the States the paperback editions were split into six books rather than three because they're so damn long.

 

[drew70]

In high school I read a lot of Ray Bradbury. Among my favorites from him are "Something Wicked This Way Comes," "The Martian Chronicles," and "The Illustrated Man."

As for Heinlein, I'm rather ashamed to say I've only read one of his books, but enjoyed it thoroughly: "Stranger In a Strange Land."

I remember a Sci-Fi short story by Stephen King called, "The Jaunt." Excellent Sci-fi and rather chilling.

Speaking of sci-fi horror, I have to give credit to my old favorite of night time chillers, "The Outer Limits." I'm talking about the original series by Joseph Stefano. Great stuff, there.

Speaking of Joseph Stephano, I believe he wrote the screenplay for the original "Psycho," directed by Alfred Hitchcock. He also wrote the episode of Star Trek The Next Generation, titled "Skin of Evil" from the first season. It's the one where Lt Tasha Yar gets killed.

Speaking of Star Trek, the original series had an episode called "City On The Edge of Forever," written by Harlen Ellison. ("Edith Keeler must die, Jim.")I heard somewhere that Ellison sued the makers of "The Terminator" for stealing his idea from that Star Trek episode I just mentioned.

 

[Haltickling]

My favorite Sci-Fi novel is "Contact" by Carl Sagan. His dialogue between religion and science (a much discussed topic here) is absolutely great. Same goes for his deep delve into border regions of maths.

Besides, I have been an avid reader of the world's longest-running Sci-Fi series "Perry Rhodan" for over 25 years. Currently, I'm reading volume 2287! By some odd chance, volume #2000 came out at New Year's eve of the millennium. It's published weekly (around 60 pages) and gets translated to many languages: http://www.perry-rhodan.net

 

[Tarzan]

Of course, I'm an unabashed Edgar Rice Burroughs fan. While not heavy on "science", his books are still fun to read even after all these years, especially his Mars books. Other authors I like, in no particular order:

Andre Norton, I'm currently reading her Time Trader series

Sean Williams & Shane Dix, they write some excellent space operas

CJ Cherryh, Rimrunners is one of my favorite books

Poul Anderson, too numerous good books to mention; two of his last books, Genesis and Starfarers are good reads

A. Bertram Chandler, his John Grimes books are still, IMHO, the best "Horatio Hornblower in space" stories.

David Palmer, most people say "huh?" when I mention his name. He wrote one of the best books I've ever read called "Emergence" which is worth checking out. He wrote one other book that I know of (Threshold) and has seemingly vanished off of the planet.

Jack Chalker, not a great writer but always worth picking up one of his titles for a good afternoon read. I was saddened when I read of his death earlier this year.

 

[Shem the Penman]

Tenser, said the tensor.
Tenser, said the tensor.
Tension, apprehension and dissension have begun!

Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man.

 

[Ignatz]

Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man.

Attaboy, Shem. Here's a cigar. What the heck, take two more for your brothers Ham and Japheth.
What a novel! A futuristic detective yarn with theological overtones and enough sheer creative energy to power a small sun.

 

[BigJim]

Like Wolf 359 or Barnard's Star possibly. 😀