Best SF

[Slangers]

What are your favourite SF writers and books?

For me:

Iain M Banks- any of the Culture novels

Frank Herbert- he is the god of SF!

[SimonR]

It's a long time since I've read any, but when I did it was Arthur C Clarke and (especially) Stanislaw Lem. I'm not sure if Ray Bradbury counts, but I liked his books too.

[Stephen]

Similar thread with some other responses here http://stargazerslounge.com/astro-lounge/124289-do-you-read-science-fiction.html?highlight=author

[dlp]

Larry Niven - think I've read everything, but the Ringworld series the best

John Wyndham - The Chrysalids is my favourite (wish they'd make a film!)

HG - anything!

[brianb]

Not deep, but great entertainment - anything by Eric Frank Russell. "Wasp" is probably the easiest to get hold of these days but "Next of Kin" is IMO his best work.

[UTMonkey]

I recommend Alastair Reynolds . Try his revelation space series, really good!

[Dangerous-Dave]

What are your favourite SF writers and books?

For me:

Iain M Banks- any of the Culture novels

Frank Herbert- he is the god of SF!

Gene Wolfe - all his books except the Short Sun sequence. The Wizard Knight had a terrible ending but was enjoyable while it lasted.

Also the same two you mentioned, in the case of Banks I think he 'jumped the shark' with Against a Dark Background. I lost interest in his work after Inversions.

Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash is a superb book IMHO, but I found Diamon Age hard work and lost track of him after that.

Now I think about it, I don't actually read science fiction any more, almost entirely astronomy books and mags and occasionally historical fiction like Cornwell's saxon sequence (Sharp's Vikings as we refer to it ).