What Is Your Favorite Sci Fi or Fantasy Novel.

reply to post by dalan.


ah, you beat me to it! LOVE polgara & belgarath

side-note - for the girlies, the black dagger brotherhood series is... um... rather entertaining... though i'd rather NOT see them hollyweirded... stuff works better staying just in my head, oftentimes

Gee Frater. I know you asked for just one but, well you know. When I retired, my paperback sci/fi collection was well over 3000. I sold and traded them all off save a hand full.

One was "Operation Survival Earth". Written by Stephan Denaerde and published in 1969, it tells of a weekend sailor out for a solitary day of fishing well beyond the sight of land.

He hooks a very large fish and pulls it aboard only to find that he has hooked a drowning alien. He saves the life and is offered the fulfillment of one wish in thanks. With little thought, instead of riches, he requests three days on board the alien ship and to be taught about their civilization society and spirituality.

And in that lies the wonder of this tale.

In the end, the sailor, who we have found is Denaerde himself states that the tale is true, but written as fiction so as to avoid the clamor of those who would demand proof and therein lose sight of the message and teachings of the tale as presented to him.

The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. Hands down, from the first time I read it on the advice of a friend, I thought it would make a great movie.

From Wikipedia:

The Mote in God's Eye is a science fiction novel by American writers Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, first published in 1974. The story is set in the distant future of Pournelle's CoDominium universe, and charts the first contact between humankind and an alien species. The title of the novel is a wordplay on Luke 6:41–42 and Matthew 7:3–5. The Mote in God's Eye was nominated for the Hugo, Nebula and Locus Awards in 1975.[1]

The book describes a complex alien civilization, the Moties. The Moties are radically different (both physically and psychologically) from humanity in ways that become more clear over the course of the book. The human characters range from the typical hero-type in Captain Roderick Blaine to the much more ambiguous merchant prince and suspected traitor Horace Bury. Robert A. Heinlein, who gave the authors extensive, detailed advice on the novel, blurbed the story as "possibly the finest science fiction novel I have ever read".

The novel is an example of hard science fiction in that close attention is paid to scientific detail. Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle are noted for writing in this genre, and it is especially evident in this work with regard to the theoretical mechanics and physics of interplanetary travel. The book's Alderson Drive and Langston Field are literary inventions, but they are presented against a background of established scientific knowledge.

Well I would say that one that I have always wanted to see made into a movie or mini-series (not like the crappy tv show they made) Is the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind. Awesome story and plot line. I read every book without barely being able to put them down. I tried watching the cheap tv series they made "The Seeker" but mostly found myself being repulsed by the complete lack of loyalty to the story.

The bible (Old Testament). would be good with charlton heston playing every character. trolling concluded.

but in all seriousness the dune series was amazing. I realize they already made a movie in the 80's and a made for T.V. one, but a proper big budget silver screen production would be awesome!

reply to post by nonnez


I'd love to say my own:amzn.to...

buuuut I have to admit with your post that Joe Haldeman's "forever war" is a fantastic piece of work, probably my favorite though I have a special place in my heart for John Ringo's Posleen Saga.

reply to post by Frater210


Stephen King's Dark Tower series are the best books I have ever read!

He really sends your brain around a whirlwind of trippy story telling which never really left me the same after reading them!

The characters in it are so strong and likeable as well!

Lets never forget the circle of ka

oh, ummmm... illuminatus trilogy!

This book has to be my favourite Sci-Fi novel of ALL time. Not many people I know personally have heard of it:

Decipher - By Stel Pavlou

Set in the year 2012, a series of seemingly unrelated events take place, which during the course of the story all become interconnected.

In Antarctica, an oil drilling venture is taking place by fictitious oil company Rola Corp. It is an unstable time in the region because the US and China are at loggerheads over mineral and oil rights, and the geopolitical landscape is dicey. The drill ship does not strike oil, but does discover a very hard form of diamond which turns out to be Carbon 60. Not only that, but the samples they retrieve have hieroglyphic writing on them.

Meanwhile, the US military has been monitoring unusually high solar flare activity and are worried about its effect on their fleet of satellites. While observing Chinese military maneuvers in Antarctica, the spy satellite picks up a highly unusual energy signal emanating from two miles beneath Antarctica's ice sheet.

When the US military and Rola Corp. pool their resources it is discovered that not only is the diamond-type material reactive to the sun, but the time of the energy pulses under the ice in Antarctica, match the timing of flare activity from the Sun.

A team of scientists are assembled to unravel the mystery. From Richard Scott, a linguistic Anthropologist, to Jon Hackett a Complexity Physicist. The team soon discover that the same energy signature from Antarctica is being detected by satellites from ancient monuments all over the Earth. From the Amazon jungle to Egypt and China. Inspired by stories of the ancient flood of Noah, Scott embarks on the mammoth task of deciphering the mysterious language found on the material, and comparing what it has to say with the ancient myths and legends of floods from all around the world.

The myths all have similar themes. They talk about the Sun, the destructive power coming from the sky, a flood, and a mythical lost city, known more famously as Atlantis. More than that, the myths talk of the cyclical nature of this destruction and point to an event that happened 12,000 years ago that may well be happening all over again.

The author of this book has written a few screenplays and this novel would put the 2012 movie to shame. If you like your novels, big, brainy and blockbusting... This is right up your street.

I'm going to have to go with Ringworld. Absolutely loved that book.

If anyone likes stories about time and dimension travel "Footprints of Thunder" by James F. David (1995) would make an awesome movie. I've read it more than once.

It began with a rain of corn falling from an empty sky, and with the unheeded warnings of a handful of eccentric scientists and college students. Only they saw the disaster coming, but nobody listened to them until…

Suddenly, overnight, the boundaries between yesterday and today dissolve, transforming the entire world into a crazy-quilt mixture of present and distant past. Portland, Oregon, turns into a primeval forest, where a vicious motorcycle gang takes advantage of the chaos to hunt tyrannosaurs. Plesiosaurs are spotted off the coast of Hawaii, while a stranded family struggles to survive between an enraged brontosaurus and a bloodthirsty park of killer whales. Winged reptiles, extinct for millennia, swoop from the sky to carry off small children. Looters battle dinosaurs in the Bronx, where one old woman, alone and forgotten, discovers a new reason to live.

All over the world, ordinary people, from a confused state trooper to a band of lost teenagers, must fight against the unleashed terrors of prehistory. Anxious researches, led by the President’s chief science adviser, try to unravel the mystery of what has happened to the world, but no one is safe when reality itself quakes beneath the terrible fury of…Footprints of Thunder.…

I really liked the characters, there's a lot of wit, and of course cliff hanger endings at each chapter so you just have to read on into the wee hours.

reply to post by Frater210

My favorite fantasy novel is "The 911 Commission Report". I have to admit, though, I didn't finish reading it.

I stumbled on these while looking on the net for free books to read, They are a little dark but very good and would make an excellent series of movies.

The Fury Saga by Darkside

www.go.to...

Synopsis from author

The Stories

Many people have asked me 'what does so and so mean' in one of my stories. Eventually I will get around to detailed comments on all of them but for now the how and the why will have to do.

Book 1 Hell Hath No Fury

As I've said before this originally was meant to be a stand alone tale but there was no way I could leave things hanging as they were. In some ways it's the most vicious of all the fury saga as the reader has no idea what is going to happen. All they know is that somebody is slowly being turned into something they despise and it's their own lack of self control that's causing it. Not only that but all their emotional support is firstly eroded and then taken away and finally their despised body is violated in the vain hope it will hold the cure. As I said a thoroughly nasty story.

Book 2 Birth Of Nemesis.

This book attempts to flesh out the character of Dr Bexley. She needed a test subject for her revenge and so she sets one up. There are a few events that cumulate in her starting her revenge, firstly the unavoidable death of a little girl and secondly she see's the love of her life with another woman. Combined with her already slim grasp of reality they were enough to tip her over the edge. On the surface this is a fun book with Dr Bexley and her new lover Cathline conspiring to teach someone a lesson. If you look beneath the surface you'll see something quite, quite different.

Book 3 - Kat O Nine Tales.

I really wanted to do something different with this book. It tells the story of nine of the main characters in the other two books but they are interwoven in a tapestry, mosaic fashion. Each little segment tells part of the story but like the characters you have no idea what is going on until it's too late. If you look closely you'll see that Dr Bexley's revenge hinges on one fatal event. If that event had not occurred it's highly likely that she would have stopped after the events of Fury Book 1. I could go into much more detail but for those who haven't read it yet it would spoil it. All in all there are 25 separate plot threads in the three books. It was a major task to keep them all in mind and keep up with the relationships and timelines between the nine tales. I liken this approach to Chaos theory, the smallest events can have the largest consequences. The first three books are really about the nature of revenge, how it can consume a person and take them beyond rational thought or reason. How taking the path of vengeance can only lead to self destruction and that of all you hold dear.

Book 4 - Incubus

It was this book that took me the longest to write, in spite of it being one of the shortest. The subject matter about a serial killer/rapist gave me nightmares and I really had to struggle with myself to persuade myself to write it. Kat O Nine tales was written before this one even though this book was started first. It really did take that long. This book was started in June 1997 and wasn't complete until spring 1998.

It's been likened to an X files episode but what I really wanted to achieve was a complete turn about in story genre. It starts off as a gory horror story but about mid way it flips into a love story. In other words the reader thinks they are reading a graphic horror story but in fact they are reading a love story. Of course it has both parts but I always think of Incubus as a love story not a serial killer one. One question to ask yourself is 'What would happen to the fury saga should the detectives fail to stop the serial killer?'

Although this story does stand alone I needed a way to bring in the characters of the detectives for the final three books. The only way I could see this happening and still provide enough depth for the reader to care about them was to write a 200K story about them.

Book 5,6 and 7- The Fury Directive.

Here things start getting serious. In the previous stories I'd made use of music, poetry and literary references but with FD I wanted it to be integrated into the story. The one element that had gone untouched in the previous four stories was the guild of assassins. FD touches on this and much much more. Whereas Fury Books 1-3 had about 25 plot threads FD brings this number to above 60. I wanted this to be more than just a TG Tom Clancey story.

If you ignore all the action, gunfire and politics you see a real cry for help by at least two of the major characters. There are at least three chapters that will reduce the hardest heart to tears and that's how I wanted it to be. If Fury Books 1-3 were about revenge then the final books are about redemption and reconciliation.

I think the few lines I've singled out from The Trachiniae by Sophocles are the most apt ones for summing up the entire saga. In fact the use of greek melodrama and mythology is a big insight into how Dr Elizabeth Bexley views both herself, her schemes and the world at large.

"Such are the fortunes of this house. Rash indeed, is he who reckons on the morrow, or haply on days beyond it; for tomorrow is not, until today is safely past.."

Book 8 Soul Mates

The final book of the saga is perhaps, my darkest story of all. Again, I make liberal use of music,poetry and literary references in order to bring the story to life. If the previous books were about the battle for the body, then soul mates is about a struggle for the soul. As the opening quote says, the journey we embark on in life is not always an easy one.

'There is a greater darkness than the one we fight. It is the darkness of the soul that has lost its way. The war we fight is not against powers and principalities. It is against chaos and despair! Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope, the death of dreams. Against this peril we can never surrender. The future is all around us, waiting in moments of transition to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain."

I am a big fan of the Simon R. Green Nightside series and if it were to be made into a movie I would not watch it. I have seen too many books I have loved turned into crappy movies, the biggest tragedy being Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice and those godawful True Blood episodes based off of Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse novels.

I really love "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and Dean Koontz's "Odd Thomas". One is already a movie and the other is currently in production.

The Space Merchants by Pohl and Kornbluth. Absolutely brilliant.

A couple that I'm surprised haven't been mentioned yet that I almost forgot about, A Wrinkle in Time and A Wind in the Door. I think I first read them when I was around 13 and they definetly left a lasting impression. I still find the whole thing with "the man with red eyes" and IT kind of creepy. The "happiest sadist" indeed.

My vote goes to the fantsty series "Dragonlance". Forgive me if someone had already posted about this series, as I am making a hasty reply here.

Originally devised into an entire role playing theme for Dungeons & Dragons, It was conceptualized into a (massive) series of novels by authors Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. Some of you may be familliar with their "Death Gate Cycle" series, along with several novels and series written independantly from each other.

Anyway, I hold many Dragonlance novels close to my heart; long ago, it helped me escape the terrors of elementary school (yeah I was the wierd kid, choosing these novels to, say, Judith Bloom heh)

Anyway, Dragonlance may be about sickly wizards, oafish warriors, grumpy dwarves, and pretentious elves... but its so much more than that.

reply to post by Phantom28804


Dude. Just askin. Based on your Avatar? Ever jumped out of a plane?

reply to post by warbird03


Yes, you bet I loved them when I was little...