[Stego]

I've only read The Book of Knights by Meynard, due to my inability to read in Frech. But his work was like a dream I never wanted to wake up from.

[Incariol]

I have a short list:

Lord of the Rings
Dune

Of course there are lots of other books that I like, sometimes a lot, but those two are the only ones I would say I love without reservations.

Both Bakker and Martin look promising but will have to wait until their respective series are finished until I consider them worthy to be in the same list as those two. Even though I'm a shameless Bakker fanboy - I consider him the most interesting currently active SF/F author.

This post has been edited by Incariol: 17 November 2009 - 02:46 PM

[Eurytus]

Ah, a horrible topic because I know I will forget a bunch.

Storm of Swords
The Winter King
Royal Assassin
Shogun
A Clockwork Orange
1984
The Silmarillion
Stardust
Tigana
From Hell
Ghost Stories of an Antiquary
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
I Am Legend
The Stand
Mythago Wood
The Iron Dream

[Race Bannon 42]

Favorites...

A Storm of Swords
The Warrior Prophet
An Autumn War
The Lies of Locke Lamora
The Lord of Light
The Forever War
Lamb
Altered Carbon
The Man in the High Castle
The Dragon Waiting
and the ugly duckling on this list : The Belgariad

[Martin Silenus]

I put a lot of thought into choosing only the bestiest, the Stephen Colbertiest, at least that I've read. So I had to resort to cheating because the funny books aren't supposed to count. :P But these are my favorites and we are allowed to make our own rules.

In no particular order, my favorite 20.

A Song of Ice and Fire (1-3) ~ George R R Martin
Gormenghast (1-2) ~ Mervyn Peake
Hyperion/The Fall of Hyperion ~ Dan Simmons
Dune ~ Frank Herbert
A Clockwork Orange ~ Anthony Burgess
A Canticle For Leibowitz ~ Walter M Miller Jr
Watchmen ~ Alan Moore
Prince of Nothing trilogy~ R Scott Bakker
Left Hand of Darkness ~ Ursula K LeGuin
Ender's Game ~ Orson Scott Card
Season of Mists ~ Neil Gaiman
Preludes and Nocturnes ~ Neil Gaiman
Helliconia Spring ~ Brian Aldiss
Infinite Jest ~ David Foster Wallace

And the borderline list for when Ender pulls a hammy and Bilbo gets the nod from the coach.

Lord of the Rings trilogy ~ J R R Tolkien
The Hobbit ~ J R R Tolkien
Starship Troopers ~ Robert Heinlein
Neuromancer ~ William Gibson
Endymion/The Rise of Endymion ~ Dan Simmons
The Gunslinger ~ Stephen King
The Eyes of the Dragon ~ Stephen King

[Errant Bard]

Let's see:

• Heartsnatcher - Boris Vian
  
• The Price of Spring - Daniel Abraham
  
• A Feast for Crows - George Martin
  
• Small Gods - Terry Pratchett
  
• Robots - Asimov
  
• Lord of Light - Roger Zelazny
  
• The Rediscovery of Man - Cordwainer Smith
  
• The odysseus - Homer
  
• Dune - Frank Herbert
  
• Ubik - PKD
  
• The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - Heinlein
  
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
  
• All on Zanzibar - Brunner
  
• Uplift - David Brin
  
• Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
  
• Lord of the Rings - JRRT
  
• Fictions - Borgès
  
• L'enchanteur - René Barjavel
  
• Sword of Destiny - Andrzej Sapkowski
  
• Le Petit Prince - Antoine de Saint Exupéry

[Zach H]

absolute favorites:

- The Wizard Knight, Gene Wolfe
- Blade of Tyshalle, Matthew Stover

others:

- New Sun and Long Sun, Wolfe
- Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
- Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell
- The Scar, China Mieville
- The One Tree, Stephen R. Donaldson
- The Fortress of Solitude, Jonathan Lethem
- Midnight Tides, Steven Erikson
- Behold the Man, Michael Moorcock
- A Storm of Swords, Martin

[Velos]

The books near and dear:

Only Forward by Michael Marshall Smith
The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway
Memoirs of a Master Forger by Graham Joyce
Altered Carbon by Richard K Morgan
Escape From Hell! by Hal Duncan

If this was not limited to SFF then Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis and Carlos Ruiz Zafon's books would be up there.

Of course, there are many more books that I love, but these I consider my favorites.

[Peadar]

Almost everything I could name has been listed by somebody else already, but I'd like to add in:
The Iron Dragon's Daughter by Michael Swanwick
The Starbridge Chronicles by Paul Park
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Xray,

Quote

ETA: Relic -- I liked the writing in AFFC.

"Egg... I dreamed I was old."

The entire segment about "Broken men" with the priest and his dog.

My list:

Hyperion
Dune (the whole series but of the later books Chapterhouse has a warm spot in my heart.)
LOTR & Silmarillion
ASOIAF
etc... (I can never remember all the books I read for lists like this)

This post has been edited by Ser Scot A Ellison: 17 November 2009 - 05:21 PM

[Kat]

I have only a few favorites and a lot of borderlines, so I'm going to not list the borderlines.

Favorites:
Last Call by Tim Powers
Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
The Scar by China Mieville
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler- I didn't think I would like this nearly as much as I did. Now it's one of my favorites.

I feel like one of the ASOIAF books should be on my list, but unfortunately, the one I think I most enjoyed (ACOK) I was listening to when I got in a car accident, which is a silly reason for removing a book from the list, but I can't disassociate the two now. And ASOS is just traumatic fiction by itself. :| So I will say AGOT.

[Datepalm]

I like the idea of going by what just *worked* for you rather than getting into the eternal quality/mood/enjoyability/steak and popcorn debate.

...of course i'm forgetting something.

- Childhoods End - Arthur C. Clarke.
- The City and the City - China Meiville
- A Hundred Years of Solitude - Marquez
- To Say Nothing of the Dog - Connie Willis
- Hyperion - Dan Simmons
- ASOIAF - GRRM
- Market Forces - Richard Morgan
- Snow Crash - Neil Stephenson

[Stego]

Hmmm. Snow Crash should be on my list. Snow Crash should be on everyone's list.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Stego,

Is Snow Crash faster than the Baroque Cycle? I've been working on that one for a while.

[williamjm]

- A Song of Ice and Fire books 1 - 3
- GRRM : The RRetrospective - probably my favourite short story collection
- Use of Weapons by Iain M Banks
- Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny
- Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
- Deadhouse Gates by Steven Erikson
- Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay
- The Sarantine Mosaic by Guy Gavriel Kay
- A Fire Upon The Deep by Vernor Vinge
- A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge
- The Reality Dysfunction by Peter F Hamilton
- The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers

So far, out of other people's lists I have mostly liked the books I've read from them (with only a couple of exceptions so far), I'm also reminded how many potentially great books I still have left to read out there.

[Bellis]

So far this thread has reminded me to add Cordwainer Smith to my to-read list.

ETA:

The rest of the 5 star from my LibraryThing's SFF category

We Never Talk About My Brother - Beagle
Pump Six and Other Stories - Bacigalupi
Earthseed - Pamela Sargent
Ender's Game - Card
People of Paper - Plascencia
Brave New World, 1984, Animal Farm
The Birthday of the World and other stories - Le Guin
Observatory Mansions - Edward Carey
The Little Prince - Saint-Exupery
Pale Fire - Nabokov
Phantom Tollbooth - Juster
Childhood's End - Clarke

This post has been edited by Bellis: 17 November 2009 - 06:23 PM

[Stego]

Ser Scot A Ellison, on Nov 17 2009, 17.50, said:

Stego,

Is Snow Crash faster than the Baroque Cycle? I've been working on that one for a while.

Oh yes. Absolutely. Read Snow Crash ASAP.

[Ran]

This is purely going to be the books I have re-read many times, and will re-read many times in the years to come, because I'm like that. So it's not necessarily the books which I consider the best SF/F books I've read, it's more about books which made me happy by reading them a lot of times, but there's some cross-over. No real order, and only one book from any particular author:

• The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
  
• Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
  
• The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay
  
• The Cat Who Walks Through Walls by Robert Heinlein (how many people in the world call this a favorite novel, I wonder? Too many people hate the red-headed Lazarus Long clan!)
  
• The Hound and the Falcon by Judith Tarr (criminally under-appreciated)
  
• A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
  
• Tales of the Dying Earth by Jack Vance (cheating a bit, as that's a collection of several novels, but so be it!)
  
• The Phoenix Guard by Steven Brust (such a fun book)
  
• A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
  
• City by Clifford D. Simak
  
• The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester
  
• Childhood's End by Alfred C. Clarke
  
• I, Robot by Isaac Asimov (to finish up the Big Three trifecta)
  
• Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner

This post has been edited by Ran: 17 November 2009 - 06:58 PM

[Stego]

Ran, on Nov 17 2009, 18.56, said:

• The Hound and the Falcon by Judith Tarr (criminally under-appreciated)

James Gunn and Robert Silverberg both list it as one of the best fantasies ever written. But no one else ever mentions it. Should I break down and read it? I've never actually seen it in a store.

[Ran]

You totally should. The first two books of the trilogy, in particular, are perfect; the final book isn't quite so strong, but it's beautiful stuff. GGK's work is the closest I can think of to compare her to. Amazon has the trilogy here. The prose isn't as ornate, but it's quite beautiful in the same way that Le Guin's prose is beautiful.

(Alas, she says that she can't read Kay because of the ornateness of prose. Hrm, wonder if anyone's ever directed her to The Last Light of the Sun? Must bring that up on her LJ some time.)