recommend me a good sci-fi book

[juliew8]

Some good choices here! I'll add +1 to Frank Herbert's Dune series, anything by Heinlein, and OSC's Ender series. Loved them all.

If you're looking for something slightly off the well-known track, try Philip Jose Farmer's "Riverworld" series.

[LMGilbert]

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but only the first two or three books of the five-volume trilogy

Everything you can find by Ray Bradbury

Nancy Kress

Ursula Le Guin

Joanna Russ

Samuel Delaney

Heinlein is ok for light reading, but he is of his era, full of racist & sexist crap. I liked Stanger in a Strange Land and Time Enough for Love though.

[Imaginalchemy]

I recently read "Ready Player One" by Ernest Cline, it was a really fun story. If you're into 80's pop culture and online gaming, that's all the better as this book centers on those themes, but even if you don't I think you'd still get a kick out of it.

[ariazo]

I would highly reccomend Hunger games! although im not sure if its the kind of book that you are looking for but it has a very interestingstory something worth reading nit just for the sake of writing a paper, if you know what i mean It is actually as troy that is very unique so it will capture your interest from start to finish!

It has a lot of good reviews as well and it has actually a movie coming out prtty soon so that might help you with your paper as well. goodluck and hope that you find the best book for you!

[gking11]

Well, depending on what sub-genre of sci-fi you're interested in, I'll go with space. Someone recommended earlier Ender's Game, and I concur that it's a fun read, and with surprisingly mature themes for a YA book.

I just finished reading Caliban's War a short while ago, it's the second book in a series called The Expanse by James S.A. Corey (actually two guys, one of whom is a protege of George R.R. Martin himself). The first book is Leviathan Wakes. They are absolutely a ton of fun to read, and I can tell you that in some parts, it's a real page-turner.

Though not quite sci-fi but more fantasy is Good Omens, co-penned by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. It's a story of an angel and a demon who are supposed to keep an eye on a child who is pretty much the anti-christ and they lose him. What follows is a series of adventures and misadventures with lots of humor.

Gaiman's The Graveyard Book is an enchanting tale if you're looking a simple, but fun and quick read. It's Jungle Book meets afterlife. That's Gaiman for you.

[GPDStevens]

You must read THE HANDMAIDS TALE by Margaret Atwood. It's more future dystopian genre but amazing (was nominated for the booker prize once upon a time).

[BookOwl]

I'd recommend Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card and Dune by Frank Herbert. Both are classics in science fiction

[Ragged]

Dancers at the End of Time (series) - M. Morcock. A sort of comic, quirky dystopia(?).
Childhood's End / City and the Stars - both by Arthur C. Clarke.

I'd recommend Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

I read a short story with that name is one of his collections. Was it a full Novel too?

[Hamr1ck]

A great trilogy that I just finished a few months ago was the Out of the Silent Planet trilogy by C.S. Lewis, which includes, Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength.

It has a great back story to it as well. He and J.R.R. Tolkein were good friends and apart of the famed Inklings club, and he and Tolkein had an agreement that both would write both science fiction and fantasy stories. Lewis held up his end of the deal, writing the Narnia fantasy series and his science fiction works, but unfortunately Tolkein died before he left Middle Earth, (he was just beginning to work on the science fiction work when he died. Just think, the master of the High Fantasy writing science fiction?)

[wdarcy]

Try "The Star Seekers" by Milton Lesser, a wonderful early generation starship tale. Although published in the 50's as YA sci-fi, it's written on an adult level. As you read it, you can see how much it influenced authors such as Brian W. Aldiss, Harry Harrison, and Harlan Ellison as they wrote their own generation starship stories (none of these later authors acknowledge the debt, though).

--Warren