Hard to tell you, the only real series I've read was Arthur C. Clarke's Space Odyssey quadrilogy.

2001: A Space Odyssey
2010: Odyssey two
2061: Odyssey three
3001: The Final Odyssey.

They were absolutely classic.

Another series by the Japanese author Suzuki Koji, was also thrilling.

The Ring,
Spiral,
Loop,
Birthday.

[edit on 17/9/2008 by mandrake]

Thank you for the info on Koji. I'll look up that author on Amazon.

Just with series? Hmm...

Love the "Revelation Space" trilogy by Alastair Reynolds (although that may dip too far into the fantasy/ space opera genre for some.

It's cliche, but I also love the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov.

Double cliche - the Dune series by Frank Herbert - can't get enough of those!

(I spend a LOT of time reading. Nothing better than books :-) )

[edit on 9/17/2008 by CeltAngel]

Manifold Series by stephen baxter.... prepare your headache medicine before reading this


By the way frederik pohl's books are just my style, thank you for posting about them

[edit on 17-9-2008 by Falken]

I'm a fan of the Area 51 novels from Robert Doherty. Nine books in the series. Ties together a bunch of stuff that should be well known to readers here.

Area 51
Area 51: The Reply
Area 51: The Mission
Area 51: The Sphinx
Area 51: The Grail
Area 51: Excalibur
Area 51: The Truth
Area 51: Nosferatu
Area 51: Legend

Jack Vance is my favorite for pure escapism and I love his style.

- The Dying Earth series is a hoot.
- Tchai, Planet of Adventure is good too, a lot of the characters remind me of people I work with.

These were written in the 60's so don't expect quantum stuff or computers that are god, they're more like space serials or character studies. They can be funny too, good books for a long flight.

CeltAngel, your comment about the fantasy genre reminds me of how I never got interested in fantasy until someone gave me a copy of The Hobbit and told me to read it! Okay, so now I love the writings of JRR Tolkien, and I will never again diss an entire genre.

The rest of the suggestions in this thread are great as well. I was despairing of having enough to read (currently we take an elderly relative to hemodialysis 3x/week for 4 1/2 hours a session), and I have thus far avoided the 10 simple (not) steps to make my notebook computer securely wireless, so I'm down to reading printed text. Thanks, people, I'm saved.

Uphill, thanks for reminding me. The entire Hobbit/ LotR universe contains some of the best books I've ever read. I'm adding that to my list of good series too!

Great ideas from everyone else too - I'm taking notes on some of these!

Originally posted by CeltAngel

Love the "Revelation Space" trilogy by Alastair Reynolds (although that may dip too far into the fantasy/ space opera genre for some.

Mannn you're the first person I've ever seen who has read these too! I loved this series and its now on my shelf of all time favourites.

My other sci-fi favs are the Nights Dawn Trilogy by Peter F Hamilton and the entire Dune series.

Just finished Paul Of Dune the other day....its well worth a read if anybody likes the dune novels

books
series

wow too many to mention, but off the top of my head i'd say

dragons of pern by mercedes lackey
the ender novels by orson scott card
the wheel of time series by robert jordan
hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy by doug adams

If it's just science fiction we're talking about, it's a 3 way tie. In no particular order.

Foundation series by Isaac Asimov
Future History series by Robert Heinlein
Dune by Frank Herbert

It's hard for me to pick between these three, If you add in fantasy to the mix then without a doubt it would be all the Drizzt novels by R.A. Salvatore as evidenced by my screen name.

I always thought Michael Moorcok did a great job with his 'Eternal Champion' series featuring Elric.

Ian M. Bank´s culture novels are truly great science fiction-he´s got an amazing imagination.
If you´ve not read any then ´The player of games´ or ´Use of weapons´ is a good place to start as the books are in no discernable order.

The Dune series by Frank Herbert and also the prequel/sequel series by his son and Kevin J Anderson have been favorite reads from my bookshelf for several years.

Another Sci-Fi favorite series is the Gray Death Legion Saga, something about giant robots has always been fascinating to me.

Dudes?
What about the Rama series???

Right on about the Rama series. I had totally forgotten!!! Arthur C Clarke rules.