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Maximilien wrote: Battlefield Earth
I am ashamed to admit I read the whole damned thing, thereby wasting a couple of weeks in my reading life. At that time I always finished a book, even when it was awful. I could have been reading something more entertaining, like used toilet paper.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Having +/- 1200 of them it is very hard to choose ( I know, I am an addict ) but I did enjoy the Foundation series, the Dune series, The dragons of Pern and many others. Special mention though for Douglas Adam's and Terry pratchett's stuff. After all it is very hard to beat 42 and the idea of a discworld. 
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1200 as hard cover ? And the mansion that goes with it ?
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Nope, all of them are paperbacks so I don't need a mansion. Its amazing what you can do with a custom home built bookcase. Mind you, it does take an entire wall though. 
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I've got around 2,000 now, and that's after heavily winnowing my book collection over the last 20 years. When we moved into our previous house, the moving company added a surcharge for the 250+ boxes of books my wife and I had between us.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Special effects are now robust enough for Pern.
Anne refused to sell the rights?
I’ve given up trying to be calm. However, I am open to feeling slightly less agitated.
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I think I'd like to see Pern done as a limited series on Netflix or one of the other streaming services. There are enough characters and story arcs to be worth a couple of 10-episode seasons.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Anything by Harry Harrison - I am re-reading a collection of 50 short stories by him at the moment.
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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Does one lose his access to the lounge if he admits to never reading SF?
If you can keep your head while those about you are losing theirs, perhaps you don't understand the situation.
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No, I have never read any programming book neither.
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theoldfool wrote: he admits to never reading SF?
No, but it does beg the question:
What's wrong with you?
Software Zen: delete this;
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Dropped on my head when I was little. Why else would I try to write code?
If you can keep your head while those about you are losing theirs, perhaps you don't understand the situation.
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That makes sense. In my case, I climbed to the top of my mother's upright piano when I was four and fell off, whacking my head on the way down. The scar is still visible on my scalp.
Software Zen: delete this;
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The classics are classics for a reason and most of them hold up very well today.
Dune (the first one) - builds an entire galactic civilization and an incredible story in one book. Loved it. The next few - not as much.
Off the beaten path though:
One book I read that I really enjoyed was 'The Excalibur Alternative' - David Weber. Good stand-alone story in the age of 10 book series.
James Hogan had some great takes on robotic evolution in Code of the Lifemaker, and on AI in The Two Faces of Tomorrow. I don't know how well these have aged in 40 years though.
David Brin 'The Practice Effect' has a great twist on fundamental physics in an parallel universe.
My two cents.
If you can't laugh at yourself - ask me and I will do it for you.
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Was it you who talked about Rene Barjavel's The Ice People several years back here?
I ended up convincing a friend to buy a second hand copy off some foreign Amazon site (they were not active in India then and still don't sell second hand books) and bring it to me the next time they came. I rather enjoyed it, although the ending was sad. So thanks a lot for the (much) earlier recommendation.
I also liked:
Clifford Simak - City.
Arthur C Clarke - Rendezvous with Rama.
Hal Clement - Mission of Gravity.
Cheers,
Vikram.
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Vikram A Punathambekar wrote: Was it you who talked about Rene Barjavel's The Ice People several years back here?
Either me or KaRL, who was the only other person that I know (also IRL) who also knew Barajavel. But wow, good memories ! And what an effort you got into to buy the book 
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Ah yes, might have been Karl with the backwards R, but probably you.
Yes, I went to a lot of effort to buy some secondhand books ~10 years back. The aforementioned Mission of Gravity and City were also bought on Amazon US/UK secondhand.
Cheers,
Vikram.
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The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress and Time Enough For Love by Robert A. Heinlein
The Chanur Saga and The Foreigner Sequence by C. J. Cherryh; oh hell, all of her science fiction is good
The Bolo books by Keith Laumer and his successors
The Old Man's War series by John Scalzi
Oath of Fealty by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
Roadmarks by Roger Zelazny
Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke
Footfall by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
...
These are all books that I re-read time and again. I have had to ration myself how often I go back to them so that they don't get stale.
Software Zen: delete this;
modified 6-Mar-21 11:59am.
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In no particular order:
The Foundation series (Isaac Asimov)
The Robot books (Isaac Asimov)
Dragon's Egg & its sequel Starquake (Robert L. Forward)
Rocheworld & its sequels (Robert L. Forward)
Camelot 30K (Robert L. Forward)
The Dune series (Frank Herbert)
Ringworld and its sequels (Larry Niven)
Rama (but not the sequels) (Arthur C. Clarke)
Some of Harry Turtledove's alternate history books
The Mesklin series (Hal Clement)
The Riverworld series (Philip Jose Farmer)
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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Interesting. For me, everything you cited is classified as fantasy rather than science fiction. I'm not judging (I say toe-may-toe, you say toe-mah-toe), but I'm curious that you group them together.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Gary R. Wheeler wrote: For me, everything you cited is classified as fantasy rather than science fiction
Tis, more elves and dwarfs, but still spanning multiple planets. Sometimes they overlap, and while I prefer SciFi over fantasy, I loved those books.
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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Glad to know I'm not the only one who thinks Tolkien is Fantasy rather than Science Fiction  And it's not a pejorative comment, I really liked LotR.
Cheers,
Vikram.
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