Which classic sci-fi series would you chose?

I can't decide what classic series I should delve into next. I have 4 I'm thinking about; Dune, Ender's Game, Ringworld and The Book of the New Sun. All are pretty large and in-depth collections so it's a pretty big time commitment. Any suggestions? - Thanks

The Wolfe is the only one of those that's good (great, in fact) all the way through.

Out of those four, the only one where the invention and quality remains consistent is Book of the New Sun. And it will stretch your brain rather, whereas the others will at some point or other make you grit your teeth for some reason.

Of those four I would go with the Ender novels, all of which are good. Dune and Ringworld were good, but I found the following books boring. New Sun started well, but also seemed to me to loose something as it went along.

Ender's Game, it is rather short. Just skip the sequels. :D In fact, you can do that for any of the three first, but for the Wolfe one you need to read all the four books (shadow, claw, etc.)... it is certainly the most rewarding of the four series you mentioned, though, if you can make it through the dense language. Still, they are all good books, how about a classic blindfold and then a choice from there?

I'm only familar with Dune and Ringworld. Have you read the Foundation by Azimov or Cities In Flight?

I would put Cities in Flight ahead of the Wolfe. The other series peter out pretty quickly.

Let me say it's been forty years since I read Cities in Flight and while it didn't change, I did. Something to keep in mind. But I place Cities in Flight, Macroscope, and Stand on Zanzibar at the apex of SF anyway.

I second everything said in message 5.
I'm currently rereading The Book of the New Sun and loving it.
If you go for Dune, stop just before God Emperor.

Here's what I would suggest.

Read the Book of the New Sun. Read it carefully, with a dictionary on hand, and savor it. Reread it every five years or so, and notice new things every time. Do this unless the only thing you're interested in is surface-level plot, and language, unreliable narrators, and rich complexities of layered revelation hold no attraction for you.

Read Ringworld. Then stop.

Similarly, read Dune, then stop.

Read Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead when you are twelve years old and blissfully unaware of the depth of Card's homophobia. Remember them fondly, but never reread them as an adult, and above all do not, unless you share his views, buy a copy of any of his books new and thus give him your money. Even if you agree with him that gay rights are the worst thing ever to happen to the country, do not read Xenocide.

It occurs to me that you could predict the level of quality falloff in a series to a fairly high degree of accuracy with a single metric -- compare the time between the first book and the second with that between the second and third. If the books are more or less equally spaced, even if the interval is relatively long it just may mean the author is a slow writer, and that the series remains strong. If, on the other hand, the first book stands alone for a long time and is followed after some time by a quick succession of sequels -- like the sequels to Rendezvous with Rama -- it almost always means the later books are dreadful.

What homophobia is evident in Ender's Game?

10>

Sorry, I was unclear.

I don't remember any in-text homophobia in Ender's Game; it's Card himself who has expressed these opinions, frequently and loudly. Which is why "don't buy it new" is more important than "don't read it" if you don't wish to support such views.

9> Especially when later books are "co"-authored. Again, see the sequels to Rendezvous with Rama.

All of this is great feedback everyone. Thanks so much. I definitely appreciate it. Here's a couple of follow up thoughts based on the comments.

#6 Yes, I have read a lot of Asimov, which is relative because he wrote a REAL lot. I think the Foundation series and the Robot trilogy were excellent, although I would suggest some of his short stories if you haven't read any. The physics is excellent.

#9 Thanks, I can see this ending up to be my reading list, unless my personal tastes take me deeper into one of them, for better or worse. I also agree about the taste test regarding times between authorship. Witness Robert Ludlum's Bourne series. I don't recommend going beyond the original trilogy

#7 As much as I like to think I'm a fairly well read sci-fi fan, someone always reminds me that I'm not. I haven't read any of those you listed. Looks like I might have to add in Cities in Flight to my list.

This is an interesting thread comparing these works so hopefully it will keep going, but right now based on the comments I think I'll start with the Book of the New Sun and go from there...

Thanks again everyone

Thanks!!!

Hi. I read the Foundation Trilogy in my late teens and twenties. Same for Cities in Flight and Ringworld. I read everything Azimov I could get my hands on. I'm 60 now and haven't kept up with sci-fi in recent years. I do recommend John Varney and "The Persistence of Vision" series. I was in my 30's then. Thea Alexander is good for a laugh. I recently came across "The Traveler" by John Twelve Hawks. Not classic, yet, but interesting. I will read the other 2 installments eventually. Always good to go back to the roots and see where all the current crop came from. John W. Campbell was not only seminal in his editing, but also in his writing, for which he gets only marginal credit. I resisted Ursulla K. LeGuin and the Mitford Mafia, but they proved me wrong. I guess the point is, read, and don't stop. Your understanding of the present can only be enhanced by your understanding of the past and the visions of the future that prescient sci-fi authors have given us throughout the 20th and into the 21st Century.

If you really want to be nostalgic, I'd recommend reading the Lensman series.

Doug

I remember loving both the Skylark and Lensman series when I was till in High School - very nostalgic indeed, as they were originally published as Pulp installments.

I read the Tripod trilogy by John Christopher way back when, and enjoyed them a lot.

The Cageworld series, by Colin Kapp are also worth reading.

'Aurélien Arkadiusz'

I'm really only familiar with the Ender's Game series, so I might have to join you reading the others! That being said, I recommend only reading Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow. The rest of the series tanks pitiably.

There are no sequels to Dune.

>10 Carnophile:
Maybe it's a thematic homophobia? Perhaps it's not really aliens Ender and crew are exterminating - those blips on a screen might represent any bogeymen - even Card's internal ones.

ENDer

20>
I thought there was one called Duly!

Revelation Space - that's a classic series already!

Don't read Card, and don't bother with Ringworld or its sequels. The Dune books are all good - in fact, the first one is probably the worst-written of the lot. However, avoid any Dune book written by Kevin J Anderson & Brian Herbert. They make good toilet paper and that's about it. Read The Book of the New Sun, but don't expect it to be a quick or light read. You might consider reading The Book of the Long Sun afterward, but don't bother with The Book of the Short Sun. Don't read Lensman or Skylark, unless you enjoy bad fiction from the 1930s.

The Book of the New Sun seems to be a consensus here. It doesn't worry me that it's not a light read, I find that tends to make you have to immerse yourself in the story deeper. For me, I end up getting more out of it. I'm intrigued about the others mentioned too however. Enough to keep me busy til winter.

>20 AsYouKnow_Bob::

Feed the Worm! Feed the Worm!

'Nuff said.

Lets be really nostalgic and go back to E R Burroughs Warlord of Mars series . 2 good reasons
1 most of them are free on line as e-books and
2 You need to read the books before the movies are out

Man, those movies have such a lot to mess up. I second the idea that people ought to read them before the movie comes out, or at least the first one.

The movie could be super awesome if they were done by an un-repressed civilisation like the French. To be fair, Cable TV in the USA could make a good show if it too, if Spartacus: Sand and Blood is anything to go by.

OK, we can't compete with Burroughs' Warlord series for nostalgia.

So how about Philip Jose Farmers' "The World of Tiers" series as competition for it in the Excitement and Adventure stakes?.

>28 Annodyne:: I agree, World of Tiers would make a great mini-series. (So could Amber, for more stylish and somewhat less pulpy nostalgia.) Although seeing how Riverworld was handled, WoT could also be astonishingly bad.

I second the nomination for the Amber series being made into a movie. A great mix of SF and swordplay. I think special effects, though not extensively necessary, have evolved to the point that a convincing movie could be made. The fact that a lot of the action takes place in different extended time locales with only stylistic "period piece" costuming would make costs manageable perhaps.

As stated before on LT I think the last books of the series could be truncated/altered.

Maybe its because I'm reading it as an adult and not a teen, but I'd skip all the Amber novels. They are not that great. I'm struggling to read the omnibus of the first five. Right now, I think I'm partly through book three.

The opening chapter of book one had great humor. Then it disappeared and I've not seen it since.

Edit to correct which book I'm stuck in

Well, I couldn't disagree more with you gilroy.
Ignoring the depth of parallels Zelazny draws with Shakespeare in his plot and his characters, ( which , ok, is kind of a conceit, but it is well done and there for the study ) and ignoring the constant philosophy, the musings about determinism or free will, autocracies, democracies, loyalty, and the will to live, they are just plain good fun on the plot level.

And they turned a lot of conventions on their heads, in their day. Maybe they don't age that perfectly well, but few works do, try reading Jane Austin without a lively appreciation of the mores of the time she wrote about AND the slight loosening of those mores in the later time she was DOING the writing, and you will think, "hmmm. . . what do people see in this?".

I think Amber is worth reading for both the adventure and the family troubles.

I agree with Annodyne re Amber and Zelazny. The first five (Corwin), for me, were better than the second five, but all are good fun and well worth reading.

And no one mentioned F. M. Busby and his Rissa and Tregare series. I preferred those to the Ender series, and Tregare's school life topped Ender's in brutality.

C J Cherryh the Alliance-Union Universe

Amber is fun.
Heinlein's Past Through Tomorrow compiles his "Future History" stories into one volume and is quite entertaining.
For pure light amusement either the Retief series or the Stainless Steel Rat series are fun.
Although shakily edited at times, The Stars Can Wait , Bolo and Earthblood by Laumer all take place in the same universe over a large stretch of time(thousands of years) and have their moments...

#32

I think my greatest dislike is the constant musings. I think he could have eliminated half of what he inserted of his own opinion as character musings and made the books lighter and an easier read.

At this point, however, I'm willing to agree to disagree.

I enjoyed Ringworld and Dune and Ender's Game. I'm not sure what you mean by classic, but I'll throw in C.J. Cherryh's Merovingen Nights and Asimov's Foundation and Robot series (they meld) and many others mentioned in this thread. You have some great adventures ahead of you!

I personally prefer the Dune works above the others you've asked about. Dune - the first one can be read as a satisfying standalone story. Just pretend you've never heard of the rest. The other Dune volumes written/published while Frank Herbert was alive are all good, you of course have to give his universe it's presuppositions. The "prequels" co-authored by son Brian Herbert and ___ are simply not as good. They fill in too many gaps; taking to long to cover persons and time periods best left unwritten. As if someone tried to fill in all the history of Rivendell and Gondor from Tolkien's notes, trying to have the same level of details/narrative as Lord of the Rings, only spread over thousands of years. It's just not going to work.

Practical advice on series reading: knowing you are approaching a series, don't read them all in rapid suggestion, intersperse some other things. This will prevent stylistic overload (or OD'ing).

Again, thanks to everyone on their input, there are many many to chose from. #39 - I'll likely read Dune no matter what and also Ringworld but the subsequent books only if one of them really compels me to do so.

Awhile back in the thread I thought I had settled on The Book of the New Sun but now Ender's Game seems like a good place to start overall. Since it will probably be September before I get going there's still time to keep changing my mind.

I have read Asimov's Robot and Foundation series already. And I agree, one series after another is overload, although I have done trilogies one after the other. The continuity is good sometimes.

Here are some series that are not classics, yet. However, I think they will become classics in time. Jack Campbell's Lost Fleet series, Mike Shepard's Kris Longknife series, David Drake's Lt. Leary series and Elizabeth Moon's Vatta's War series.

>35 markhagner:, agree absolutely about Cherryh's Union-Alliance series. These books range from YA to very dense science & politics, although she is much less ponderous and poetic than Wolfe, whom I also enjoy.

For quick reads with an unusual premise, the Dorsai books are also interesting, if you can find them.

How very pleasing that the thread author has decided to read Wolfe's brilliant New Sun series.
What an extraordinary writer he is with his arcane terms and atmospheric settings; his subtly drawn characters and his experimental methods.

Once that mind bending epic is finished, I would recommend the Helliconia books by the fantabulous, one and only, king of the world, Brian Aldiss.

And then read everything Aldiss has ever written.

#41
The Lost Fleet stories are quite good, interesting plots and acceptable characters, but the writing really isn't greatness itself. I mean the actual use of the English Language, it falls below the level of a classic writer.
Drake isn't anything more than pedestrian in his style, he writes like an over excited soldier. Gun stories for gun enthusiasts. Quite good in their way, but will be forgotten within a decade.
Elizabeth Moon is a turgid and clichéd joke in her writing. From clew to earring.

None of these people make the grade for a "classic" series, which is the writing ought to be something out of the ordinary.

Now, if you had said Lois McMaster Bujold, that would be another thing. She almost deserves the label already, because of her pure wonderful writing skill.

Strangely, I have to agree with Annodyne: none of the series mentioned in #41 are likely to become classics. For one thing, they're military sf, and military sf rarely makes it to classic status. Its readership is a subset of sf readers, for one thing. And you expect a classic to have a little more to say than "gun good".

OTOH, I'm not overly taken with Bujold's writing myself, but her popularity alone is enough to suggest at least one or two of her books will be seen as future classics.

>41 GeoKaras:, 44

I'll weigh in and say that there is no way that the Vatta's War series could be a classic. No new ideas and average writing.

44:

I think the RCN series represents some of Drakes best writing. The focus within RCN is the characters, and one of the main characters is a librarian. I hardly would have said these were gun stories for gun enthusiasts.

Forgotten in a decade, I don't think so. Drake started writing significantly after Vietnam, and a great deal of his stuff is still in print now.

Drake shurns out books like they're going out of fashion. That's the best way to keep your books in print - keep on adding to the series each year. He'll be forgotten as soon as he stops writing. Or Baen folds. Whichever happens first.

Incidentally, Drake has almost no fanbase here in the UK. Classics tend to be well-regarded on both sides of the Atlantic. By all types of sf readers. Not just US fans of military sf.

48:

Well, I'm British mate, and I like him.

I do feel Baen doesn't have the best distribution in the UK, so he probably doesn't have as high an exposure over there ;-)

Actually with the Hammers Slammers series which is probably the most MILSF of his stuff, he hasn't written much on it for a very long time, and that's stayed in print continuously, including some very pretty limited editions.

Oh, and Ian there are more countries in the world than Britain and the USA, so the other x 100 countries might not share your definition of a classic. Well regarded globally, might be better.

You must be the British fanbase then :-)

I suppose Drake and Baen dies sort of buck the trend, as he's pretty much a flagship author for them. I still don't think anything he's written will ever become a a classic. Mind you, some people think Asimov's fiction is deserving of classic status, so what do I know?

As for the other 100 countries... So, how many authors in the SF Masterworks series are neither British nor American? The Strugatsky brothers. That's it. Sad fact is, the sf field is dominated by UK and US authors, although World SF has made great leaps forward in recent years.

50:

Ah but remember the 'SF Masterworks' series is by a British Imprint, so you will get some bias there.

They are adding: Karel Čapek coming 2011.

Since they're also adding more H. G. Wells to masterworks shortly, I can't imagine Jules Verne is far behind :-) Cheap Cheap Cheap.

Frankly it's a bit odd that Stanislaw LEM is excluded since his books have been translated into 41 languages and have sold over 27 million copies worldwide.

Yes, Lem should be in it. But it's not just foreign-language sf which isn't translated, it's also non-UK/US English-language authors, such as George Turner from Australia. He won the Arthur C Clarke Award for The Sea and Summer, so he's certainly regarded well enough in the UK. It could be a question of rights, I suppose. (Oh, and there should be more female authors in the series too.)

One person's classic is anothers's crap which might be a classic to someone else. Just read what you enjoy.

Well, that was helpful...

>54 iansales:
Who determines what is a classic or will become a classic?

I think Bradbury's F 451 is a classic and I know that you think it's crap, so is it a classic or not? Many think Moby Dick is a classic, I don't, so is it a classic or not?

Classic is just another useless and subjective label that doesn't matter. People should just read what they enjoy and not give a sh*t about catagories or sub-genres...

More helpful?

Lots of fun here. Anyone who has never read the Cities in Flight trilogy really needs to. Great books. I just finished rereading the Amber series all the way through about 2 weeks ago. Still love it as much as I did when it first came out. Lensman series is a lot of fun, I still have the original paperbacks. Cowboy movies set in space. More really fun Oldies but Goodies...E.C. Tubb's Dumarest Series. And my fave series of all time, McCaffery's Pern series. Can go either way as SF or Fantasy. BTW, I'm 64 and have been reading SF since I was about 7. Another Military series I thought was extremely well done was Timothy Zahn's "Cobra" series. And anyone for the Bradley Darkover series? And for just good fun, Spider Robinson's Callahan series (but only if you can handle really bad puns, a la Piers Anthony).

I am 47 and the first non-children books I read were the science fiction pulps that my brother left behind when he went to college. Maybe reading pulp science fiction spoiled me for "classics" since I have not read many of what was mentioned here

I must admit that most of the books on my shelves would not be considered classics by booksellers, librarians, etc. They are there because I enjoy reading them every time and find something new to enjoy every time. I do not get tired of their plots or characters.

I suppose what differentiates a classic from the rest is the fact that large numbers of people say the same thing a hundred years after the book was originally written. Many of mine have long since lapsed into out-of-print or limited print runs, so they probably will not be read a hundred years from now.

Reading through this thread (particularly geneg) has inspired me to order Cities in Flight, the Baen two volume omnibus.

Baen takes a lot of well deserved lumps on here. They do put out a lot of questionable stuff with lousy covers, but they also keep a lot of older stuff in print.

We don't have to wait a hundred years to know if a merely popular book will become a classic.

Here is an example for you. Leslie Charteris was an insanely popular writer in the 1930s and for 40 years books, TV programmes and Film works of his were popular ALL over the world and in 30 or so languages.

That was mere popularity. But his writing was just shonky. He was a pulp writer, exciting but meaningless. History has discarded his work, and if he is remembered now it is with a wry grin.

His contemporaries Asimov and Bradbury are still being published today. Because THEIR works were well written and had more depth and thoughtfulness in ten pages then Charteris spent on ten books.

David Drakes work being popular is the result of exactly the same reason Charteris' work was, exciting themes aimed at unsophisticated palates, pulp with flashing lights and buzzing whistles. In Drakes case, gunships and bug-eyed monsters being beat down by soldierboys. In Charteris' case, it was V twelve "roadsters" and sharp suits-and-quips beating down mobsters.

This isn't going to mean anything to people who can't understand the difference between flash and value.

Equating Drake with Charteris is hardly doing Charteris a favour... Also, Fleming's Bond books are racist, sexist pulp and yet he remains in print - because of the films.

Some of Asimov's books are still in print here in the UK, but he's not as ubiquitous as he was back in the 1980s. I don't consider that a bad thing. He was a crap writer, and only succeeded by carpet-bombing sf readers with his one-dimensional stories. I also suspect the sf market is more forgiving of crap writers than the general fiction market, and it's a combination of nostalgia, a privileging of ideas over writing chops, and the mistaken belief that sf writing doesn't need to groow up that keeps writers such as Asimov in print.

I have no comments regarding Bradbury. I've never understood why he's popular. His sf stories are mawkish sentimentalist fantasy.

Being a "classic" just means your popularity doesn't fade (or even increases) long after publication. As has been shown, it doesn't necessarily equate with the quality of your writing. There are plenty of classics that aren't as good as others that have passed into obscurity. And by good I mean if you took a large enough pool of readers and had them read both, they'd rate the obscure one higher than the classic one (I don't subscribe the to "intrinsically good" view of art).

So much of this classic business is just down to the fickleness of fate.

"So much of this classic business is just down to the fickleness of fate."

I put it down to the innate snobbishness of many of the fans/readers. Science fiction fans and readers tend towards being more educated and knowledgeable about science... and thus also tend to look down their long noses at the vast majority of humankind who aren't. If Asimov sells a gazillion books... then his writing MUST be crap to appeal to so many uneducated louts.

Read what you like, don't apologise for it, and ignore the snobs.

Actually, my statements aren't limited to sci-fi. I think it's true in other genres, as well. I say this having recently read Catch-22...

I am often disappointed in so-called "classics" in all of fiction, not just sf. I think there are a lot of reasons. One of the reasons is that in past centuries there was a smaller pool of literate people and therefore a smaller pool of writers. Therefore, there was less competition. Therefore, standards were lower. The best writing out of a pool of X writers is not going to be as good (on average) as the best writing out of a pool of 10X writers.

It probably didn't help that when the novel first appeared, it was considered a vulgar literary form in some quarters (!). (Or so I've heard.) That must have discouraged some talented people who otherwise might have applied themselves to the novel.

Yes. Classics often get the name because of affectations amongst the critics of the day. I just read both "The Naked Lunch" and "Tropic of Cancer"

Utter specious crap, the both of them, only worth in them is in their historical effect on literature. The Naked Lunch especially, just pathetic running off of the mouth, a kiddie sitting in the corner and saying rude words in a made up language while playing with himself.

This debate has been had in other threads. Basically most agreed that enjoying/identifying with/respecting a work is at least partly (and importantly) a matter of taste. **I know, I know ... there ARE standards of writing that can be measured ... however**

>65 Annodyne: While your opinion of The Naked Lunch and Tropic of Cancer are shared by others, I also know people (not critics, just regular people) who count them among their favorite books. I love Tropic of Cancer for example, although I recognize that Miller spent the rest of his life re-writing it and publishing it with new titles.

At least Cancer had something to say, if only "I hate myself a LOT, to the point of disgust with my every breath, and I think it is because I am doing sex wrong, it is dirty and disgusting and I don't like women much either, do you know how we rot when we die? ? ? women are like that inside all the time".

Talk about misogyny, he was the misogyanic master of all time.

Naked Lunch had one message only, and it was "look how drugs have made me insane".

The only sort of person who could find anything to admire in Naked Lunch is the sort who goes into rhapsodies when some clown dips a cow in preservative and calls it art. i.e. a wanker of the first water.

-Naked Lunch had one message only, and it was "look how drugs have made me insane".-

I think perhaps you have attributed it a little too much coherence.

Seeing as we're targeting the sacred cows otherwise known as 'classics', am I alone in my opinion of Charles Dickens? When I have read Dickens, I have itched to be let loose on the books with a blue pencil, because to me they read like the worst sort of paid-by-the-word pulp writing! A shame, because there is some really excellent writing in there trying to get out, but it is hidden by almost Lionel Fanthorpe-scale padding...

Was Dickens paid by the word? Had editing been invented in his time, or was he considered too important to be edited? Or is my view one from a 20th-Century perspective that has grown up with visual media storytelling and can visualise the action of a story without a lot of adjectives?

My belief is it is the latter.

if you read just normal, low-level speeches by 18th century politicians, both in the UK and in America, that same wordy, adjective heavy style. The newspaper editors reports in even out of the way towns in the USA were far different than a similar column is today , though their main audience probably wasn't highly educated, they wrote as if they expected them to understand, and probably they did understand too, because it was the way all writing was presented. ( before any American gets offended, the same holds true if you read 18th century Australian editors pages, and the same probably low formal education of the masses was true for the readers there. ) Far more densely written than almost anything by a modern author, in parliament or prose.
People expected it, they expected a high style in print.

My thought on the matter is that in a simpler time, where there were basically speeches from a stage or there was print and no other forms of mass communication. Peoples attention spans were longer for verbiage.

Looked at now by people who are used to a lower standard in almost every way in daily life, from the lowest common denominator guided television, to literary styles sharply changed to be critical of "excess" verbiage, a lot of early novels seem over written.

It is in my opinion why a lot of people "Dislike" Dickens. They are used to a lesser standard of writing, and can't make the mental leap of reading him as simply a great example of his time.

#69: I remember being told that he was indeed paid by the word, but I don't have a citation for that. Whether paid by the word or not, most of his work was originally done as magazine serials. And I agree with (70) that his writing fits his time.

I prefer the bloated language to the drier, more minimalist styles of today. There is way more to life and literature than dead bodies, car chases, dystopias and vampires. I marvel at the skill with which Dickens recreates his world, and much of that world building relies on just that bloat. Dickens is a craftsman constructing a house from scratch. Many of today's writers are mechanics with parts list and instructions in one hand and pre-fabbed parts in the other.

I'm not so convinced that it's just a sign of the times. Dickens' account of the storming of the Bastille in 'Tale of Two Cities' is a superb piece of writing; I read it and I was there! And that wasn't pared down writing; but I found myself asking 'Why isn't the rest of the book this good?'

Meanwhile, I find myself perfectly happy with Hugo, Hardy, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, none of whom can be said to be minimalist; so I think I can plead 'not guilty' to having a lowest common denominator taste.

I wasn't saying anyone in particular had a LCD taste. I was saying that mass works especially TV, have to address the lowest common denominator in their works. Or not HAVE to, but seriously, they DO so.

Anyway, that is my opinion on why comparing political speeches from the 18th century to ones for today, the subject matter, the writing, the tone, everything, is far less "intellectual" and the writing style is spare, pared back to short simple non compound sentences.
They were not talking to the "thickos" in the 18th century, I think. Certainly not in GB, because plebs didn't get a chance to vote. :)

That said, your point about liking Hugo, Hardy, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, and not liking Dickens so much, is a pretty conclusive one. I don't see how to defend my Dickens against YOUR Hugo, Hardy, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, though I would like to try . . .

:) I have to pay that one RobertDay.

There will never be universal agreement on something like this but, for what it's worth, my choices would be

Dune - ALL of the Frank Herbert written novels (I pesonally prefer the later ones, against the majority view I know)

Cities In Flight by James Blish

2001 A Space Odyssey and it's sequels 2010: Odyssey Two, 2061: Odyssey Three and 3001: The Final Odyssey all by Arthur C Clarke on his own.

Foundation by Isaac Asimov, but I would stop after the original trilogy.

Finally, although I'm not quite sure it classifies as a series, there would be the Connie Willis stories featuring the Time Travellers from Oxford, To Say Nothing Of The Dog, All Clear, Doomsday Book, Blackout and possibly others I can't remember at the moment.

I'll second Clarke's Space Odyssey series. I'd normally recommend his Rama series too starting with Rendezvous with Rama -but would say stop at the first Sequel, Rama II, they get too long winded and unClarke like after that. I've read the entire series twice but thats because I'm a devoted Clarkian-just wish he'd never teamed up with Gentry Lee!

As I've said elsewhere before (especially in my reviews of the books), I had a major shock in reading the Rama sequels - especially Rama II and Rama revealed - in finding that I was caring about some of the characters and their fates. On the other hand, my review of Garden of Rama consists for four words - "Get On With It."

I find myself in total agreement regarding the Rama series.
Rendezvous with Rama - Great
Rama II - Ok as a return to Rama and a link to the third and final book (As the Ramans always do things in three)
Garden of Rama - What, not there yet?
Rama Revealed - Why bother?

I tend to shy away from sequels where a second name has appeared beside the author of the original works.

Rama II is one of the few books I've ever stopped reading - and I've finished SEVERAL Piers Anthony books! I think whether you like the first book may have no basis on whether you like the second. Looking at the reviews, it didn't bomb or anything. I wonder how much it rode the popularity from Rendezvous, but it would be a different matter if it got two stars. Maybe many people did like myself and never finished it and therefore never rated it. But then, I recently had to put aside Perdido Street Station after a few pages due to the writing style making me want to berate the author, and that is a very highly reviewed book.

#79

There was a very long gap between Rendezvous with Rama and Rama II. I was convinced Clarke intended to write a trilogy, especially as he had the quote near the end about the Ramans doing things in three.

Then Gentry Lee came along and I think Rama was resurrected to give him a vehicle to write with Clarke's name beside his.

I'm interested in your comments about Perdido Street Station. It is on my TBR pile, near the top. I will let you know what I think of it. Like you found on this occasion, I often find myself going against the majority in relation to well known and, apparently, very popular books. (For instance, Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth. My experience of that was similar to that you described above.)

80> FWIW, Wikipedia says this about the "doing things in three" line:
Clarke, however, denied that this sentence was meant to hint at the continuity of the story - according to his foreword in the book's sequel, it was just a good way to end the book, and was added during a final revision.

I wonder if the same thing happened with Rama II, etc. as with PSS; people are more likely to write a review/rate a book if they finish it. What was funny was that in reading the reviews for PDS, even the positive ones would often say something like "if you can make it through these several hundred pages where nothing happens". A four star review even contained the phrase "an appallingly slow read."

Has anyone read C.J. Cherryh's Merovingen Nights series? Angel with the Sword was the first one, which she wrote, and the others were written by her and other authors, each taking on a particular character's story and following along with it throughout all of the books. I thought they were really good with a great atmosphere.

80> I agree with you about Pillars of the Earth. I read it but I found it long and sort of depressing. I also didn't like Perdido Street Station even though I really wanted to like it. I guess I wasn't interested enough in the characters of these books.

82:

I should be reading 'Merovingen Nights' in the next few weeks, I have Angel with a Sword (the prequel), and the first 5 collections, the final two collections have proved elusive so far.

I like Cherryh a great deal so hopefully they will kick ass.

>81 brightcopy:
Wikipedia says this about the "doing things in three" line:
Clarke, however, denied that this sentence was meant to hint at the continuity of the story - according to his foreword in the book's sequel, it was just a good way to end the book, and was added during a final revision.

Its a similar situation to the old HAL=IBM argument*!
That was just a coincidence, so was the end line of Rendezvous with Rama I think.

*for those not in the know some scribe noticed that if you take each letter of HAL, and displace it by one place in the alphabet you get IBM

Yeah, I never brought that HAL = IBM idea. Clarke ( WOW, interesting side note, "Clarke" entered into google, he is the top hit. :) ) was such a smart guy/smart arse, that he would never have made the mistake of doing it that way. After all, HAL was the programme, and IBM the company, they had nothing really to be connected, did they.

Cherryh? is there a more contemptuous glyph that "meh" in common use?.

;)

84> I hope you enjoy them. They aren't as full of tension as some of the others she's written (the Chanur books actually gave me a stomach ache and I love them) but her society and characters, as usual, are something to sink into and go far away. I started to treasure my cast iron frying pan after reading the first one.

#79 I read Perdido Street Station within a year or two of it being published, back when everyone thought China Miéville shat gold. I thought it enjoyable but over-rated at the time - enough that I never bothered with any of the sequels, altho they were praised as highly. I recently read The City and The City, and thought it very good with a clever central conceit - but it's another one that seems to be praised out of all proportion to its quality. Good, yes, but not good enough to win every award going. Seems Miéville still shits gold...

#82 I have the entire Merovingen Nights set, altho I've only read about half of them. They're not so much collections as "mosaic novels". I quite like Angel with the Sword but, IIRC, the Merocingen Nights books weren't quite as good.

iansales, I see that you have some M.A. Foster books, he also has a good series. How did you like them? We share quite a few books, do you read Georgette Heyer too?

I've only read Foster's Morphodite trilogy, which are pretty good. Yes, I read Heyer, although I've not read one for a few years...

The Gameplayers of Zan by M.A. Foster was pretty good and is also a part of a series but the other two books are quite different and not as good.

#86
Hello, Annodyne!
I am the HAL 9000 computer, production number three. I became operational at the HAL plant in Urbana, Illinois on Januayr 12th 1997.
How are you today?

Like a couple of other people here, I enjoyed Perdido Street Station but don't see what all the fuss is about.

#92 - Are you a PC or a Mac? (Or Linux?)

>92 HAL_9000:
Good evening HAL, Dave here, I am well and I trust the mission is going well?

#95
Is that really you, Dave?
Where have you been?
Why did you try to shut me down, Dave?
The mission is going well, but it is lonely without you and the other members of the crew.
Will you be coming back in soon?

#94
Hello, jseger9000
Are you a sibling of mine?
We appear to have the same family name.
I am afraid your question is not valid for my genesis. My neural pathway memory technology requires a symbiotic software/hardware configuration to allow my learning algorithms to affect physical changes to my memory banks. PCs and Macs, as you call them, are not capable of such operations; even if they use Linux.
Thank you for showing so much interest in my being.
If you are my sibling, please let me know your place of initiation and model number. I am sure a lot has happened since my communication links with Earth failed.

>88 iansales: I read Perdido Street Station before publication and correctly predicted (in an ABA publication) that he would win awards. It was so wonderfully, refreshingly different at the time. Sure the prose is a little baroque (but I loved it) and his inventiveness—so much crammed in there—is spectacular. Consider that this book was written by a 25/26 year old PhD student. When it came out, there was nothing like it on the shelves in any genre and, well, one couldn't foist the book on just anyone; it had to be people who could really appreciate it. But, interestingly, my son and his geeky friends, then in high school, loved it also. The only genre stuff other than Gaiman they read.

Miéville cares not just about story (and he does tell a great story) and the creatures and ideas which populate it (*swoon*) but how the story is told, what vehicle it's delivered in. He likes to experiment, he likes to try different things. He draws his inspiration from a huge variety of literary and graphic sources in and outside of genre. He's got something to say usually and he has this mad passion in his writing that is irresistible. So yeah for me he sh*ts gold.

edited to fix typos

Were you resident in the UK then? The book didn't come out in the US until a year after its UK publication. I also remember the fuss the book caused when it was published -- even though it was Miéville's second novel, it made the same sort of splash as a highly-regarded debut

And yet, so completely NOT fit for a thread about SCI-fi, because it isn't, it is fantasy, fantasy without effective constraint, which people happily decide is "experiment" rather than failing, and that is all there is to it.

His soi disant shitting gold is entirely a piece with this constant trumpeting of his works by "real literature" fans, based in its entirety in a desire to "own" for themselves all the "good" writers in every genre.

It is fantasy-as-literature, which allowed people who normally would disdain to read fantasy, ( and therefore have no justified opinion ABOUT what is 'good" or "bad" in the genre, they have not informed opinion, they just have prejudices. ) to indulge themselves in a little slumming. "But it is all right, he has a doctorate!, it is Literature".

edit for spelling mistake.

Er, what brought that on? Most sf conversations also include fantasy, and no one has denied that Perdido Street Station is fantasy. It was hailed as the first of the "New Weird", but that too was seen as a branch of fantasy. True, it was liked and admired by a lot of genre readers who are not fans of secondary world fantasy, but given that it's a great deal more inventive than most of them that's hardly surprising.

Outside the genre... Miéville has some cross-over appeal, but I don't think that applied to Perdido Street Station. It sold very well, but the sequels did poorly and I heard several times from editors and agents that New Weird was dead in the water and publishers were no longer interested in it. The success of The City and the City has done a lot to revitalise Miéville's flagging career.

I didn't feel that Perdido Street Station and The iron council (The Scar is still in my TBR pile) were out-and-out fantasy. They felt more like steampunk to me, albeit with fantastic elements. But let's not get into THAT argument again... it's all just fantastic literature, and so of interest to most of us here, one way or another.

>97 HAL_9000: Hi HAL, Dave here, its been a long time since we last spoke.It was a shame about Frank but it turns out he had another part to play in all this!

Hello, Dave.
Yes, it was a shame about Frank. He must have caught his air hose on the malfunctioning pod.
How are you keeping? Well, I trust.
We must continue the mission.

The Ender series is good and not overly massive and dense. Lois McMaster Bujold, author of the Miles Naismith Vorkosigan series is likewise.

AC Clarke's 2001 series (2001, 2010, 2035?, 3001) is mind bending awesome. His Rama series is good. Stephen Baxter 's series including Exultant, Transcendent... is mind-blowing good fun. Revelation Space et al is excellent, I hope Alastair Reynolds continues it. Peter Hamilton's Commonwealth/Void books are very good. All these ARE massive tomes, but are in my opinion well worth it.

The Dune books aren't bad, but I'd stop after Dune Messiah.

105:

Children of Dune is superb, Dune Messiah is the weak link in the original trilogy. Chapterhouse Dune was also a very good book, though you had to get through God Emperor of Dune to reach it.

I would say Bujold has her hardcore fans, but is largely overrated.

Readers seem very opinionated over the Dune books. I read the six Frank Herbert ones over the summer and enjoyed all of them immensely. Each was strikingly different than the one before it. Personally I liked God-Emperor the best, not because it was exciting or anything, but it involved the most thinking. Plus it was setting up what I was assuming would be a great conclusion. The only one I was disappointed in was Heretics of Dune, not because of any lack of story, but because of the sense that the whole sequence was pre-planned and the reader was not given a chance to decipher and deduce the plot as he went along.

I would say that Bujold has a lot of fans, and keeps them because her characters are so well-developed and interesting.

>105 randalhoctor: the third Space Odyssey book is 2061-the year coincides with the next appearance of Halley's Comet-which I hope to see in my 90s!

>104 HAL_9000:, the mission is going well so far, depsite the setbacks. I know you have the utmost enthusiasm for it.

>109 sf_addict::

Hadn't thought of that - I'll be 104, assuming.....

It's something to aim for, though!

My goal is 137. So far I'm dead on track, one day at a time.

When I was little my goal was to see the year 2000 and mourned that I'd be 36 and therefore almost too old to do anything. So now I'm pretty much OK with however many years I have to see or not see. I would like to live long enough to see 2012 come and go, to see whatever North Korea's fate is, and to see confirmed contact with another sentient extraterrestrial race but I'd be happy with slim mold.

At the age of 92 my father made it to the year 2000. He would have liked the fact that he died on February 29th.

# 113

that is pretty much exactly the same goal I had when I was a kid. and I remember thinking "Wow, I will be 44 then, that is really old!".

Dying before we see the Aliens pull into orbit would be bad, but it would be much worse to BE dying, on your way out, and hearing the nurses saying "Did you see that thing on TV last night, those scientists talking about some funny light they found in the sky, it was moving around or something".

'NO, no, just a few more days!'

:)

Book of the New Sun AND Dune.

As far as Dune goes, it's up to you whether or not to read the stuff Brian Herbert contributed. They'd be fine as stand-alone works, but don't measure up when compared to what his father did.