What is your favorite SF story that is not Star Trek or Star Wars?

[frenat]

Ender's Game and anything and everything by Asimov.

[Valis]

Philip K. Dick is my all-time favourite, I own pretty much everything he has written. Gollancz has published most of his short stories in 5 volumes sorted in chronological order (Beyond Lies the Wub, Second Variety, The Father-Thing, Minority Report, and We Can Remember It For You Wholesale),  and as PKD was an excellent short-story writer, those are definitely worth checking out. To name a few of his novels that I've liked the most, there's Ubik, A Scanner Darkly, and Lies, Inc. VALIS is also an excellent read, though I'm not sure I'd classify it exactly as science fiction.

Iain M. Banks was also a great writer, and I've been quite saddened by his recent death. Excession is probably my favourite, I really like the scheming AI-ships of the Culture.

A few others I've enjoyed recently:

Incandescence by Greg Egan. I've not really a fan of his other works that I've read so far, but this one worked well.

Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan. In similar style, Neal Asher's Gridlinked was also good.

The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson. Another favourite writer of mine; I'd grade his Cryptonomicon as possibly the best book I've read (though it's not sci-fi).

I have a smallish sci-fi collection (about 500 books, out of my total collection of about 1100 books). After buying all the obvious classics of the genre, I've found http://www.bestsfbooks.com a valuable resource for finding possible candidates.

[gillianren]

My sci-fi is maybe a few dozen out of even more books, so yeah.

[Bryanpoprobson]

Victory Unintentional. I can still visualise the robot stirring the molten liquid in the crucible. Or am I channelling another story?

How weird, I have just read that story again for the first time in 10 years (Rest of the Robots) only to read this post literally minutes later.

Have a library of Asimov, love in particular the Foundation series and the way he inter-weaved his Daneel character from his Spacer novels into his later foundation sequels and prequels. I must admit though I picked up a book the other day at a boot sale, for 20p. It was by Alastair Reynolds and called Century Rain, I couldn't put it down. I may well look up some of his other titles.

2001 is a brilliant film and one that is very thought provoking.

For comedic value the BBC series Red Dwarf is outstanding, especially the cat character in the early episodes (he becomes less catty as the series moved on).

[Al Johnston]

I must admit though I picked up a book the other day at a boot sale, for 20p. It was by Alastair Reynolds and called Century Rain, I couldn't put it down. I may well look up some of his other titles.

That would be time well spent

[Zakalwe]

BTW, Jay - just finished The Martian in essentially two sittings. Great read - thanks.

Ditto.

What a great read!

[JayUtah]

I wish our resident author up in the conspiracy section would read it and learn what a gripping first-person narrative sounds like. Glad you folks all liked it.

[Zakalwe]

I wish our resident author up in the conspiracy section would read it and learn what a gripping first-person narrative sounds like. Glad you folks all liked it.

It's not a word, but I would describe it as "unputdownable"!

I'm in Provence at the moment and it's very rare that I would ever wish a plane journey to last a bit longer (especially when flying Easyjet!). Saturday was one of those rare times....  I rarely read fiction nowadays, but this one had me hooked.

[Valis]

I must admit though I picked up a book the other day at a boot sale, for 20p. It was by Alastair Reynolds and called Century Rain, I couldn't put it down. I may well look up some of his other titles.

I haven't read that one, but I was quite disappointed by each of the three novels of his I read (Pushing Ice, The Prefect, and Terminal World). I think that the best of those was Pushing Ice, but the inane ending ruined it for me.

[Bryanpoprobson]

I haven't read that one, but I was quite disappointed by each of the three novels of his I read (Pushing Ice, The Prefect, and Terminal World). I think that the best of those was Pushing Ice, but the inane ending ruined it for me.

I have been put off by a few reviews of his other works, but the concept of Century Rain was quite good.
 
Another author that I thought might have got a mention by someone was EE 'Doc' Smith. Ok his books were naive, non PC, but were (as we say in the UK) ripping good yarns. The Lensman series in particular, although Masters of the Vortex was a bit of a letdown..

[Echnaton]

I must admit though I picked up a book the other day at a boot sale, for 20p. It was by Alastair Reynolds and called Century Rain, I couldn't put it down. I may well look up some of his other titles.

I haven't read that one, but I was quite disappointed by each of the three novels of his I read (Pushing Ice, The Prefect, and Terminal World). I think that the best of those was Pushing Ice, but the inane ending ruined it for me.

I have only gone through the Revelation Space series.  The ending there was something of a let down after the long time invested.  While I enjoyed the read, I have noticed putting off other books (Pushing Ice specifically) because I am not sure the time invested is worth it for the ending.  Does Reynolds have a reputation for weak endings?

[Bryanpoprobson]

Does Reynolds have a reputation for weak endings?

Until I picked up the one book, I had never heard of him before.

[Echnaton]

Does Reynolds have a reputation for weak endings?

Until I picked up the one book, I had never heard of him before.

I liked the books because they were hard SciFi.  Plenty of speculation and metaphor but no dragons, conjuring or Gollum wannabe creatures.

[Tedward]

"Forever War" I did enjoy as I did "Star Ship Troopers".

But recently beed reading books from Peter Hamilton and that has bumped up to my favourite, that is the problem, one of his series I found too much as in dull. Which of the ones of his I like it is hard to say. So, Greg Mandel, as it is just that bit off reality but still within today, ish.

[Valis]

I'm wasn't familiar with Reynolds, either, and only picked up the books as I recognized the name from ads (his books have been recently translated to my native language, and surprisingly, they've even been marketed quite extensively) and could get those three (in English, I don't read translations if the originals are in English) for a low price.

But recently beed reading books from Peter Hamilton and that has bumped up to my favourite, that is the problem, one of his series I found too much as in dull. Which of the ones of his I like it is hard to say. So, Greg Mandel, as it is just that bit off reality but still within today, ish.

I have all Hamilton's sci-fi books except Great North Road, and while they do have dull parts, I did enjoy them. Greg Mandel series is good (it's tighter writing than most of the other works), but the Commonwealth Saga is his best stuff, in my opinion.