what is you favourite science fiction book?

Question

what's about it?

Answer 1

Solaris

Answer 2

The Sheep Look Up is a science fiction novel by British author John Brunner, first published in 1972. The novel's setting is decidedly dystopian, the book dealing with the deterioration of the environment in the United States. With the rise of a corporation-sponsored government, pollution levels in big cities have reached extreme levels and most people's health has been affected in some way. Continuing the style used in Stand on Zanzibar, there is a multi-strand narrative and many characters in the book never meet each other: some characters appear in one or two vignettes only. Similarly, instead of chapters, the book is broken up into sections which range from thirty words in length to several pages. The character of Austin Train in The Sheep Look Up serves a similar purpose to Xavier Conroy in The Jagged Orbit or to Chad Mulligan in Stand on Zanzibar: an academic who, despite predicting and interpretating social change, has become disillusioned by the failure of society to listen. This character is used both to drive the plot and to explain back-story to the reader.

Despite being nominated for a Nebula award, the book fell out of print in the 1990s, only later being republished. The new edition contains a foreword by David Brin and an afterword by environmentalist and social change theorist James John Bell. Brin places the book in the context of Brunner's time and other writings. In the afterword, Bell treats the book almost as prophecy, drawing parallels between events in the book and subsequent real world developments: "His words have a kind of Gnostic power embedded in them that gives his characters passage into our world". A couple specific examples are that "Brunner's puppet of a president, affectionately called Prexy, is a dead ringer for our Dubya" and that sabotage done by the Earth Liberation Front is pulled directly from the pages of the novel.

The title of the novel is a quotation from the poem Lycidas by John Milton.

Answer 3

Hi Debra, my favourite Science Fiction book is Doomsday Book by Connie Willis. A Time travel experiment goes wrong and a young woman is accidentally sent to the UK just before the time of the Black Death. Anything by Connie Willis is worth reading but Passage is really, really good if you can get hold of it.
All the best mate.

Answer 4

The Cross-Time Engineer by Leo a. Frankowski

THE RIGHT MAN FOR THE JOB
One moment Conrad Schwartz was a hungover hiker in the mountains of modern Poland, the next he was running for his life from an angry Teutonic knight.

At first Conrad just thought he'd stumbled across a mad hermit. But several days of ever stranger events convinced him that he had somehow been stranded in A.D 1231.

And that meant Conrad had to turn Medieval Poland into the most powerful country in the world. Otherwise the Mongols were destined to destroy it--in just ten years!

Answer 5

The Day of the Triffids

The idea of the world going blind watching a light show in the sky is something I can imagine. The main character who was bandaged during the lightshow misses what everyone raved about but is left as one of the few that can see.

Disease tearing through London as people cannot survive without seeing and the following attacks of the government created plants - triffids, adds to the story which makes statements on humanity and government.

Answer 6

I'm with the person who said "Day of the Triffids". I bought the book at a school fayre when I was about 8 and only read it a couple of years ago (I'm 29 BTW). It explores the breakdown of society quite brilliantly. The makers of "28 Days Later" should have been dragged through the courts for ripping it off so blatantly.

Answer 7

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and Magic Kingdom for Sale/Sold

Answer 8

I like the Dune story the best but it's a heavy read. I'd say The Hobbit & the Harry Potter series.

Answer 9

Childhoods End..by Arthur C. Clarke
or
Last and first Men..by Olaf Stapledon

Answer 10

A Scanner Darkly, by Philip K. Dick. Impossible to describe, a possible future, in parts funny, compelling the hero is someone to identify with, the story is believable and it is very well written.