ilves: I recently bought a kindle and am working through some sci-fi classics I've never read. In the last 2 or so months I've worked through: Forever War, Hyperion, Fall of Hyperion, Neuromancer, and some other random books.
Planning on going through Endymion, and the sequel, Starship Troopers, snow queen, stranger in a strange land, a wrinkle in time.
In case anyone wants to give other suggestions, I've already read: enders game and sequels, dune, hitchhikers, foundation, fahrenheit 451, ringwold, rendevouz with rama, brave new world, snow crash, mote in god's eye, left hand of darkness, lord of light, reality dysfunction, and probably bunch of other ones.
I highly recommend Samuel Delany for sci-fi. I'm not the biggest sci-fi reader, but I've been on a real Delany kick lately, and am currently digging through his most famous and convoluted book, Dhalgren.
The transformation of him as a writer is p. damn striking, starting off with a couple generic '60s sci-fi books when he was about 20 years old, then getting obsessed with ancient mythology and quest structure and linguistics, releasing really...odd classics like Babel-17, the Einstein Intersection (inspired on the movie Black Orpheus--also recommended) and Nova, and he started bringing his Harlem culture and bisexuality into his stories. Nova has implied homosexuality and the hero is black, which was pretty bonkers for sci-fi in '68, but that was tame compared to where he disappeared to after Nova. He wrote two porn novels, one never published until the '90s and the other quickly went out of print, and then released Dhalgren, which is a massive, sprawling book compared in difficulty to Ulysses and Gravity's Rainbow about a midwestern US city that's suffered some mysterious catastrophe that cuts it off from the rest of space & time, where buildings burn forever with no change and two moons appear over the city, and the hero has some mental issues where he perceives things differently than other characters. It's really bizarre, complex, but also quite graphic in bisexuality. (The author grew a similar philosophy to Alan Moore, in trying to make porn literary. It's simultaneously off-putting and admirable.)
Delany's often been put on the lists of most important sci-fi writers, but...it kinda seems like he's disappearing in importance, which is just
wrong. He's amazing, one of the best voices in the genre. He also wrote Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand and Aye, and Gomorrah story collection that are well-respected...I think most of what he's written after Dhalgren has fit more into that "porn lit," though, rather than sci-fi. He has a new monster of a book coming out that looks like it barely skirts the line into sci-fi territory.
SOME OTHER SUGGESTIONS, with less rambling:
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Giles Goat-Boy by John Barth --
http://www.librarything.com/work/125070 (His Sot-Weed Factor is also great, but not sci-fi--rather a lampoon of 18th century literature, mimicking the language with the most highbrow dick and fart jokes I've ever read, and about 10 pages devoted to two prostitutes exchanging insults and nothing else.)
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Sixty Stories by Donald Barthelme --
http://www.librarything.com/work/29676 -
In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan --
http://www.librarything.com/work/1842212 -
Ratner's Star or White Noise by Don DeLillo --
http://www.librarything.com/work/971285 &
http://www.librarything.com/work/4953 (WN doesn't need an introduction, but RS is horribly underappreciated. It was DeLillo's response to reading Gravity's Rainbow.)
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Tours of the Black Clock or Days Between Stations by Steve Erickson --
http://www.librarything.com/work/68067 and
http://www.librarything.com/work/90046 -
Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban --
http://www.librarything.com/work/44537 -
Solaris by Stanislaw Lem --
http://www.librarything.com/work/18415 -
The Age of Wire and String by Ben Marcus --
http://www.librarything.com/work/170865/ (Honestly, I can't tell how much I liked this. It was just...bizarre...very...difficult....)
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Easy Travel to Other Planets by Ted Mooney --
http://www.librarything.com/work/206965 (Barely hits into sci-fi territory, tbh. More of a mix between the drama of Jonathan Franzen and the themes and setting of Don DeLillo. About language, information sickness; our heroine works to bridge the language gap between humans and dolphins. Features sex with dolphins. :|)
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The Third Policeman or At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien --
http://www.librarything.com/work/7104 or
http://www.librarything.com/work/58506 (Also fairly arguable as sci-fi. But they're hilarious, and brilliantly written...I wish I could remember them better, TBH...it's been a while...gosh, I'd love to re-read these. He's often compared to Joyce. Probably because he's Irish and wrote around the same timeframe, and--I think--was friends with Joyce, or at least Joyce loved his books. The TV show Lost took some ideas from the Third Policeman, like the room that created whatever you wished for. ASTB is--and I'll get this wrong--about a writer writing a story about his character writing a story about the author creating a story with the help of his characters from his story who are writing a story about themselves writing a story....or...some...thing...I...yes.)
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Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon --
http://www.librarything.com/work/10088 (IMO the best book ever written. His book Against the Day also features a lot of sci-fi, steampunk-y stuff, but along with western and thriller and 19th century boys adventure and everything else.)
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Roadside Picnic by Strugatsky bros. --
http://www.librarything.com/work/49011 (May have heard of this, from STALKER being based on it. Really, a damn fine book.)
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More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon --
http://www.librarything.com/work/20911 (The most sci-fi book here; basically Sturgeon's answer to William Faulkner. It covers a lot of the same territory as the Sound and the Fury. Brilliant book, story, writing, everything. Transcends what sci-fi was at the time of publication.)
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Just a Couple of Days by Tony Vigorito --
http://www.librarything.com/work/35251 -
Infinite Jest by David Wallace --
http://www.librarything.com/work/903 (Hey, this is sci-fi enough, right? right????)
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The Illuminatus! Trilogy, Schroedinger's Cat Trilogy and Masks of the Illuminati by Robert Anton Wilson (& Robert Shea) --
http://www.librarything.com/work/5999 &
http://www.librarything.com/work/2681850 &
http://www.librarything.com/work/2449031 (I haven't read any RAW since I was a teenager, but he was the most influential author at the time for me. Introduced me to a wealth of my current interests. No idea how much I'd like him today. Think Deus Ex, but with a bunch of dick and fart jokes, surreality, drugs, sex, occult ideas and whatever else in addition to the conspiracies and transhumanist philosophy and science and mythic symbolism.)