Sci Fi and fantasy top ten

Not A genre I know tons about but here goes in no particular order



Christopher Franklins books

Robert Jordan WOT series

Terry Pratchett

Katherine Kerr - good celtic (at first anyway i never finished but introducing dragons 'shudders')

George R R martin - The whaddya call it series

David Gemmel and any of his books

Dune

Running out of ideas and energy carry on people please I need inspiration.

Peter

Frank Herbert and the Dune series
Isaac Asimov's Foundation Series

Fantasy- Lord of the Rings, Chronicals of Narnia

Sci-Fi- Starship Troopers (actualy a hafl decent book)

Hicks.....news flash. LOTR sucks. Didn't you see Clerks 2? See that and tell me LOTR was good.... it's just walking.

Star Trek NG is the only good sci-fi show....everything else sucks.

Originally Posted by harm

Hicks.....news flash. LOTR sucks. Didn't you see Clerks 2? See that and tell me LOTR was good.... it's just walking.

No offense, but in that movie were they refferring to the Movie, or the books?

Originally Posted by harm

Hicks.....news flash. LOTR sucks. Didn't you see Clerks 2? See that and tell me LOTR was good.... it's just walking.

A lot of people would disagree. I didn't used to be a fan of fantasy until I saw Lord of the Rings. The visual effects and story telling were astounding. The books couldn't have made a better translation to the silver screen. Hats off to Peter Jackson. btw, how exactly does watching a stupid comedy bomb like Clerks 2 somehow prove that LOTR was bad?

As for sci-fi films, the cult classics IMO are the best:

2001: A Space Odyssey
Blade Runner
Dune

oh and nobody can forget

Plan Nine From Outer Space :tooth:

Philip K Dick and Michael Moorcock. William Gibson has his moments too.

Mmm. I'm thinking of placing an order for one or two Fantasy books soon. After reading some D&D Books [shudder] (But in my very early teens!) I'd like to move onto more realistic deeper fantasy, more sword than sorcery if you get my meaning and hopefully morally ambiguous characters with a dark plot. Any recommendations? I've looked up George R.R Martin's Song of Fire and Ice series, it looks perfect, and I'm also considering Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson. Anyone read them?

In no particular order...

Books
Dragonlance
Frank Herbert's Dune (God Emperor is my favorite)
Asimov's Foundation Series
Steven Erikonson's Memories of Ice (@Insurrectionist - I was God knows how many books behind, but I caught up 100 pages into the Memories of Ice and was hooked from there on out. There's a considerable deal of 'sorcery' in the realm of the story, but the majority of the action takes place on an epic scale, ie - armies clashing in the style of antiquity, relying on brute force and numbers)
Zone of the Enders (Speaker for the Dead was good, and proved that having taken up to Spanish 5 Honors in Highschool I can understand Portuguese on paper )

Movies
Empire Strikes Back
LOTR: Fellowship (Felt the sequels were too juiced up with CGI. Gollum was 'meh' and Return of the King was boring)
Dune (I enjoyed both versions)
5th Element
The Matrix (I liked the first one, okay )

Actually, now that I think about it, are there any notable Fantasy movies out there other than Peter Jackson's pile of Emmy winners? The only one that comes to mind is Dungeons and Dragons, which qualifies as mental torture.

Books I would recommend:

SciFi:
Iain M. Banks: Use of Weapons; the Player of Games; Look to Windward; Feersum Endjinn
Alastair Reynolds: Chasm City; Revelation Space; Redemption Arc
Orson Scot Card: Ender's Game ; Speaker for the Dead.
AE van Vogt: Null-A series
Bob Shaw: Ragged Astronauts trilogy
Vernor Vinge: The Peace War; Marooned in Realtime
Jack Vance: The Demon Princes
Isaac Asimov: Foundation series

Fantasy:
Jack Vance: Eyes of the Overworld and Cugel's Saga
China Mieville: Perdido Street Station

TV series:
SciFi:
none
Fantasy:
Buffy (just for laughs)

Movies:
SciFi:
Contact
Minority Report

Fantasy:
none

Books:
Isaac Asimov Foundation series
LOTR
Silmarillion
Discworld series by Terry Pratchett

Films/TV:
LOTR
Battlestar Galactica(what ive seen of it, dont have sky so may have to buy the dvds to see it all)
5th Element

I'm pretty sure it was the movie, fans of the movie on a whole seem to act a lot dorkier than fans of the book. You never get rabid fangirls swooning over Legolas or geeks dressed up as Aragorn thinking it makes them cool among Lotr book fans. Still, only my personal experience. It's the rabid fangirls swooning over Legolas that really ****es me off though. It's just too annoying for words.

Originally Posted by El Guapo

George R R martin - The whaddya call it series

A song of Ice and fire. ASOIAF. Really great series but I am getting a tad ****** off at the looming presence of high fantasy in it. Making that Princess off in the Asia-like continent off to be some sort of messiah for Westeros, the fat little guy from the wall seeing magic in that southern place nearby where he was born. A real gift to that book and the author was that it was 'fantasy', but a very gritty, very realistic sort of fantasy. No spellslinging, no real abundance of fantasy races except dragons and the stuff beyond the wall. It'll be dissapointing if the ending ends up being more typical of fantasy.


David Gemmel
John Marco
Frank Herbert (I felt like Dune hit a lower point during..at al oss of names, but I felt like God Emperor was the weakest. And it seemed kinda iffy on the later ones. The first three were my favorite).

There's a lot of other ones that are single books I could nake. Angelica by Sharon Shinn was pretty good, as was Thomas Harlan's series set in a fantasy-ized late Roman Empire.

Battlestar galactica new series, possibly the most realistic series to date,

no destroyer sized ships that move fast, startrek

, no overly wanked size, and powered ships, starwars

no aliens, or fancy beaming tech and crap,


its like ww2 pacific in space, litterlly.

you can see 2 ships duke it out, with flak cannons, and fighters attacking, 2 cumbersome ships lauching shell's and missiles every second, ships relying on heavy armour to withstand nukes, no shields or technobabble, broad sized attackings.

BSG RULES!


then startrek
stargate
then FIREFLY!

Originally Posted by Ahiga

Frank Herbert (I felt like Dune hit a lower point during..at al oss of names, but I felt like God Emperor was the weakest. And it seemed kinda iffy on the later ones. The first three were my favorite).

Yeah, this seems to be the case for most Dune readers I know. I agree that something was missing from God Emperor onward, and the whole idea of the Honored Matres was a bit shaky (the two thousand year jump ahead in time didn't help, hehe), but I guess the development of the gholas and unfolding of the Golden Path kept me interested.

Argh, i love so many i'll put up more in time. Quickly though for TV, Babylon 5 was great.

ps. Can someone please tell me if Isaac Asimov's foundation series get's better as it goes along? I'm reading Foundation at the moment but it seems pretty dull.

Dragonlance was a great series. I read over 50 of their books, then I lost interest.

Sci-Fi and Fantasy combined, can't be bothered separating 'em: Pratchett's Discworlds top the list, especially the Watch. Comic but realistic, despite being set on a disc on four elephants on a tortoise. Or is (s)he a turtle? Take away what message you will... even one that contradicts mine :wink:
Douglas Adam's Hitchhiker "trilogy in five parts" comes in at second (and 42nd) as a comic masterpiece, pure and simple.
And third, Tolkein's Lord of the Rings is truly epic fantasy, and in my opinion an excellent opus; a must read for the fantasy reader. Don't see the film first, however. Its very different from the book and I prefer the book.
Hereonin they aren't in order.
I'll go for Pullman's His Dark Materials; interesting ideas and a good plot. Overall a nice trilogy.
Asimov's Complete Robot. A specific book, but al his robot short stories and an excellent read. His intrductions to each section are well worth looking at, too.
David Edding's Elenium is a good three-part series, again. A fun read, all told and not too demanding.
Again by him, Redemption of Althalus is one book but longer, again with the comedy and a good story. In, of course, my opinion.
Wyndham's Day of the Triffids is a terrifying work. Excellent but, if read in one go and so on, terrifying.
Same goes for War of the Worlds by HG Wells of course.
Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts series starts well but tails off a bit; I recomment it only to one interested in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, I guess, but it makes a good read.

I totally forget the guy's name, it starts with a Z I'm pretty sure, but it's The Thrawn series for Star Wars novels. Yes, I'm lame =P

And Pnut is that supposed to be Vergere?

Originally Posted by Publius Clodius Pulcher

I totally forget the guy's name, it starts with a Z I'm pretty sure, but it's The Thrawn series for Star Wars novels. Yes, I'm lame =P

And Pnut is that supposed to be Vergere?

I figured, who better to represent existentialism than Matthew Stover with rainbow colored feathers?

I haven't read that many Star Wars novels, mainly because they're popcorn pleasers and lack any real substance, but NJO: Traitor is one helluva book.