<p>I really like the genre, but every time I enter a bookstore's sci-fi aisle, I drown in a flood of derivative, poorly-written junk. </p>
<p>That's where you come in... hopefully. What are your favorite science fiction books?</p>
<p>One of my favorites is War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells</p>
<p>The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.</p>
<p>Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card</p>
<p>I was just about to say Ender’s Game. I just reread it yesterday actually. Anyway, if you like Ender’s Game I would also suggest Ender’s Shadow.</p>
<p>Yeah, Ender’s Game is one of my favorites. I really like the sequels, as well-- even Xenocide and Children of the Mind, though I’ve heard those are less well-reviewed. Ender’s Shadow is pretty classic, too.</p>
<p>I didn’t like Xenocide and Children of the Mind as much. I felt like they were more difficult to read than Ender’s Game and Ender’s Shadow. They just didn’t hold my attention quite as much. But they were still fantastic, imo.</p>
<p>“Gone” by Michael Grant was pretty good. I also really liked “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.” It was about parallel universes.</p>
<p>I recommend “the moon is a harsh mistress” even though I never technically finished reading it;</p>
<p>It’s not exactly science - fiction … but Eragon :)</p>
<p>I heard the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov is great.</p>
<p>Also, I read the Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury a while back and really enjoyed it.</p>
<p>Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde ~ It’s my favorite book</p>
<p>Ender’s Game FTW</p>
<p>Jurassic Park, baby! Anything by Michael Creighton is good.</p>
<p>And here I thought I’d be original in saying Ender’s Game and Ender’s Shadow. The sequels to Ender’s Game weren’t really my thing, though. The series that followed Shadow was much more “geopolitical thriller” than “science fiction”, and it was very entertaining, but the dialogue (in all the books, at least some of the time, anyway) is painfully stilted, which I guess is the product of having a load of impossibly precocious kids as your cast. </p>
<p>There’s a film version due out in the near future, though I’m not sure whether it will be centered in “Game” or “Shadow”, or if it will combine the two (I doubt it; the movie would be longer than the original cut of Gettysburg). And it features a lot of the trendy child actors, plus Harrison Ford, so reading the books in advance might be a good idea.</p>
<p>The Artemis Fowl Series was good. I would definitely suggest them. These books aren’t as full of science fiction as most, but the Uglies/Pretties/Specials/Extras series was good. In fact, any book by Scott Westerfeld is good XD.</p>
<p>I’m not really into science fiction, but The Host by Stephenie Meyer was my favorite.</p>
<p>Dune by Frank Herbert. Please, do not base the novel by what you’ve seen in the movies; the book is so much better. (I haven’t seen the whole movie, but I assume it never gets any better than any of the parts that I did see.)</p>
<p>There are a lot of good quotes from that book as well.</p>
<p>@Fantasy: You shouldn’t have said who wrote that book haha. Now nobody will read it XD.</p>
<p>It’s a shame no one mentioned Vonnegut yet. Cat’s Cradle is a great satirical commentary on the human race, set in an apocalyptic scenario.</p>