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Ask YC: What's the most inspiring sci-fi book you've read?

43 points by moog ↗ HN
Since Mary Shelley published 'Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus' in the early part of the nineteenth century, there's been an awful lot of sci-fi written. Which books do you recommend and why?

81 comments

[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 313 ms ] thread
inklesspen
Lady of Mazes, by Karl Schroeder.

Simply the most idea-packed book I've ever read that was actually entertaining. It also has some interesting discussions about meaningful post-singularity life (which are at least partially applicable to our lives today).

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0765350785/

brentr
Brave New World, by Huxley

I read this book in the eighth grade. I was fascinated by the classes the society was divided into. In the book you were born into a certain class, and I saw many similarities to today's world. It was not the most inspiring, but definitely it was the most interesting.

jauco
Yes, i was reading this book while commuting and thought that the mantra's those people said while swallowing anti-depressives was a bit over the top. Then the guy in the opposite seat swallowed a peppermint and said 'no smint no kiss' to the guy next to him...
rms
I consider this to be the greatest sci-fi short story of all time.

http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html

I'm a big fan of the book 1984, along with the full length works of Asimov.

optimal
Great story. I was trying to track down the name after reading the Clarke thread (though Asimov wrote it, not Clarke).
TrevorJ
Oh man, yes. best ever.
ggrot
I love this story simply because if you read the entire story and not the last line, it is worthless.
jcl
I also liked Fredric Brown's shorter, funnier (and earlier) version:

http://www.alteich.com/oldsite/answer.htm

(For some reason, I had thought this was one of Asimov's as well...)

rms
That's great, I didn't know this existed! I had heard people retell Fredric Brown's version of this story and thought they were talking about Asimov's story. Thanks for the link.
zeantsoi
I had always confused "The Last Question" with another Asimov work... "The Last Answer".

I had first read TLQ many years ago, and had recently tried to find the story online, only to come across TLA. As hard as I tried, I couldn't come across the original story about the Multi-Vac (which, of course, is TLQ). I became briefly convinced that I had never actually read TLQ, but had made the story up in my head... until I read this post. Turns out I'm not actually genius. Kudos!

http://destructionoverdrive.blogspot.com/2005/06/last-answer...

rms
I like "The Last Answer" also. It says a lot about Asimov's religious views. My first exposure to Asimov short stories was Robot Dreams which has both The Last Question and The Last Answer.
hernan7
For some reason I misread "the most insipid". Oh well...

Personally the one that inspired me the most was the Foundation trilogy, with its nerd-propelled universe.

karthikv
I love 1984. I wouldn't say it was inspiring (its dystopian) but rather an eye-opening experience. It made me change the way I look at security and privacy.
dkokelley
If you liked 1984, then you might also like "We" by Yevgeny Zamyatin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_(novel) (don't follow the link. copy-paste it with the (novel) part.)

I've never read 1984 (I hope to when I make time), but I understand that they are similar. In fact, I heard that "We" was the inspiration for 1984.

SwellJoe
Read the whole set:

We

1984

Anthem

Brave New World

I love dystopias, and these four have always seemed to work together, to me.

seregine
Monday Starts on Saturday (by the Strugatskii brothers)

A programmer on a road trip through Siberia picks up two hitchhikers, who recruit him for the ideal job: to take over the computation center at the research institute of enchantment and applied magic. Fantasy sets the mood, but the book is really about people who love what they do because it's challenging and meaningful and fun.

One of my unfinished projects is translating it to English.

Tichy
It seems to be available in German, but comments on Amazon say the translation is abysmal. Hope you manage your translation soon ;-)
dhimes
The Lathe of Heaven (also: The Forever War; The Einstein Intersection).

Hmmm. My favs seem to all start with "The."

Prrometheus
No hacker site would be complete without mention of Cryptonomicon.

That being said, I always liked the epics in the style of Poul Anderson, Robert Heinlein, and the like.

huhtenberg
I find Stephenson to be somewhat hard to read due to his peculiar use of present tense. His Snow Crash novel is an absolute must read in a cyberpunk genre. It is really vivid, bizarre and quite believable version of a near future. Only if he'd opted for using past tense .. :)
lee
His Baroque Trilogy I found to be the most inspiring read in the last few years - while it's easy to argue that it isn't strictly science fiction. Since it sets up characters who appear in Cryptonomicon, I feel I can get away with it.

What the trilogy has in common with inspiring sci-fi is that it changes the way I look at the present - drastically. His characters are present for the beginnings of what we call science, the current economy and also on slave and pirate ships. He has brilliant physicists who are also alchemists and at war with themselves over not being able to resolve their own contradictions. (Newton) It's fiction about the history of science - and it's weirder and whackier and grander than anything else I've ever read. (Take THAT Tolstoy!( (you hack!)

Of course, I'll also second Snowcrash as a must-read. Same with Cryptonomicon.

jcl
I'm a fan of The Diamond Age, myself. I found it inspirational that nanotechnology could make the fulfillment of basic needs effectively free, that creating programs could translate into creating real objects, and that an interactive device could amplify learning.
noodle
i can't narrow this down to one. some of these are already named: Cryptonomicon, Snow Crash, "The Last Question", Ender's Game/Shadow, Dune, Slaughterhouse 5, Ringworld
dedalus
The Black Cloud by Fred Hoyle
bstadil
excellent choice.

For many years I always looked at the animation when I was defragging my windows disk and thinking about the end of Black Cloud. (Hint. The janitor looking at the screen)

"October the first is too late" is another Hoyle classic.

doubleplus
The Night's Dawn Trilogy by Peter F. Hamilton
fish
Neuromancer by William Gibson, though it might not be inspiring, is a must-read; it's practically internet heritage!
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airhadoken
I thought Pattern Recognition (same author) was quite inspiring, though I don't know if it counts as most people's definition of science fiction.
Flemlord
Anything by Ian M. Banks. His Culture books are about a post-singularity universe where humans and superintelligences live in harmony. I'd recommend starting with Player of Games.
cocoy
Dune, Dune Messiah and Children of Dune by Frank Herbert are my favorites. the sequels God Emperor, Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse were good as well but I like the 1st three the most.

Dune was about how people shouldn't let supermen lead. it was complex. it was an ecological novel. they had quotable quotes like "thou shall not make a machine in the likeness of the human mind". people say it's the lord of the rings of science fiction. the characters are rich, the plot thick. i highly recommend Dune.

nazgulnarsil
Dune is fantasy >_> God Emperor of Dune was my favorite even though it was the most preachy. I thought the original Dune was a bit preachy being so strongly allegorical and all.

I prefer Herbert's other novels like Whipping Star/The Dosadi Experiment

knv
+1 for Dune (my favorite in the series is the 5th book - Heretics).

By the way, don't expect the prequels and sequels have even half the quality of original Herbert works.

cocoy
yep. that's true.
skittles
I don't read a lot of fiction, but I've read this entire series through 4 or 5 times. It taught me a lot about politics, economics, and religion. Definitely changed me.
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tjr
Growing up, I read a series of "children's sci-fi" books by Louis Slobodkin, the first being "The Spaceship Under the Apple Tree." These books played a significant role in my developing scientific interests.
ericb
Probably a book of Phillip K. Dick's short stories. If you want to inspire imagination, nothing's better than sci-fi short stories for a hit of imagination-crack, and Phillip K. Dick is a master.

You've probably seen movies based on his stories, including: the Minority Report, Total Recall, Blade Runner, Screamers, A scanner Darkly and a few others.

nazgulnarsil
depends on the subgenre :)

Superhuman: Slan by A.E. Van Vogt More Than Human by Theodore STurgeon Odd John by Olaf Stapledon

Post Apocalyptic: The Day of The Triffids by John Whyndham Earth Abides by George R. Stewart A Canticle for Lebowitz by...don't remember

Space Opera/Adventure: any of The Culture novels by Iain M. Banks The Reality Dysfunction series by ...don't remember Hyperion series by Dan Simmons To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip Jose Farmer

Dystopian: We by Yevgeny Zamyatin <---highly overlooked, predates 1984 and Brave New World

But the Absolute Best would be anything by: Stanislaw Lem (Cyberiad, Futurological Congress, Solaris) Alfred Bester (The STars my Destination, The Demolished Man) or Samuel R. Delany (Babel-17, Dhalgren, Trtion, Nova) oh and Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light and This Immortal are both great.

Some of Philip K. Dick's stuff is great, but everyone recommends him. :)

almost forgot John Brunner, check out Steel Beach, The Sheep Look Up, and Stand on Zanzibar.

nazgulnarsil
forgot Time Travel Connie Willis (To Say Nothing of the Dog, Doomsday Book) both great. anything by Ursula K LeGuin as well.
kryptos
Stanislaw lem.. i agree... Solaris was special.. and most purists seemed to suggest the translation from Polish was bad!... Olaf stapledon's last and first men, starMaker were both stunning... Ursula le guin also come to mind
liquidcool
If you're going to mention John Brunner, you can't forget The Shockwave Rider. I found it very prescient when I read it in the '90s. If William Gibson is the father of cyberpunk, I think that makes Brunner the grandfather.
anupamkapoor
i like heinlein's "moon is a harsh mistress" and alfred-bester's "tiger-tiger / stars-my-destination". kinda old school though.
Eliezer
"True Names and Other Dangers". Reading a remark by Vernor Vinge on his concept of the "Singularity" led to my current career as a Research Fellow of the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence.
as
I actually read True Names at your suggestion. The concepts were worthwhile but it exemplifies the reason many consider Scifi to be a literary ghetto - that for many sf authors the story is just a vehicle to get an idea of theirs across, artistic consideration being secondary. Not to say literary ends are more valid than conceptual ones, but it seems unfair to scifi that the genre has it's artistic merits judged by averaging both.
as
And somewhat improbably, I just finished Great Mambo Chicken today.
jobeirne
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Technically, it's sci-fi. Neuromancer a close second.
huhtenberg
Read the question, people, it's a trick one. The inspiring sci-fi book, not just a favorite one.

While I have a long list of favorites, I can't readily think of one that would stand out as inspiring. Virtually any good sci-fi book is impressive as it's a result of imagination at work, but this does not equate to be motivating.

So in this light the question is not that simple at all. I'm very curious to see if there's an answer to it :)

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Got it ! Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island. I read when I was 14-15 years old and the amount, details and clarity of science exposure in the book was really astounding. In a very positive, inspiring way.