Speculative Fiction A-Go-go

[JWBear]

The current discussion, in another thread, of Ursula K LeGuin’s Earthsea books made me think. I imagine most here on LoT are fans of the sci fi and fantasy genres, or are at least familiar with it. So… I thought I’d start a thread for us to discuss what our favorite sci fi/fantasy books are; the ones that we found the most enjoyable, and those that moved us and maybe had a profound influence on us.

I was introduced to the genre at the age of 12, when I was given a copy of a collection of short stories called Tales of Time and Space. It had stories by such luminaries as Clarke, Asimov, Laumer, Silverburg. I was hooked. In my teen years, I gorged myself on science fiction – mostly “hard” sci fi. Later, I also gained an interest in fantasy.

At some point in all this, I bought a copy of Arthur C Clarke’s short story anthology The Nine Billion Names of God. The stories in this book blew me away. In it is some of the best work he’s ever done; stories so profound and thought provoking that I had to put the book down and think and ponder, sometimes for days, before I could move on to the next story. Clarke has been my favorite genre author ever since – I’ve read everything he’s written.

He has written hundreds of short stories; too numerous to pick out my favorites. However, my favorite of his novels are:

A fall of Moondust (Tourists trapped in a lunar sightseeing vehicle after it crashes)

The Fountains of Paradise (The building of a “space elevator” from Earth’s surface)

Imperial Earth (the scion of Titan’s most important family travels to Earth to represent his colony at America’s quincentennial celebrations)

Rendezvous With Rama (A team of scientists are sent to investigate an immense alien ship that has entered the solar system)

The Songs of Distant Earth (Refugees from a dying Earth arrive at a planet that had been colonized centuries earlier, but with which all contact had been lost)

Childhood’s End (An ancient alien race arrives on Earth to lead mankind in the next step in its evolution)