# Recommendations for the best Mind Blowing SFF books( i am newbie in this genre)



## ltsetskhladze (Jul 7, 2019)

Hello i  want to start reading SFF books and i want to know with what to start and to give me best options there . i am really interested in sff and want to know recommendations of professions  . One of my friends suggested dark matter is it good ?


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## BAYLOR (Jul 7, 2019)

*Fire Upon the Deep*  by Vernor Vinge
*Sun Diver * by   David Brin
*Star Tide Rising *by David  Brin
*The UpLift War* by David Brin
*Ghost *by Piers Anthony
*Colony* by Ben Bova
*The High Crusade* by Poul Anderson
*Non Stop* by Brian Aldiss
*Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep * by Phillip K Dick
*Doomstar* By Edmond Hamilton
*Morlock Night* By K W Jeter 
*Jack Faust *by Michael Swanswick
*Babel 17      *By Samuel  Delany
*Nova*  By Samuel Delany
*The Stars My Destination* by Alfred Bester
*Deathbird Stories* by Harlan Ellison
*Man Plus* by Frederick Pohl
*Way. Station  * By Cifford Simak
*Bolo and Rogue Bolo *by Keith Laumer
*The Black Sun *by Jack Williamson
*Damnation Alley* by Roger Zelazny
*Ringworld *by Larry Niven
*Donovan's Brain *by Kurt Siodmak
*The Veils of Azlaroc* by Fred SaberHagen
*Cities in Flght* by James Blish
*The Killing Star *by Charles Pelligrino  and George Zebroski
*The Gods Themselves *by Isaac Asimov
*The Dreaming Jewels *by Theodore Sturgeon
*Between the Stokes of Midnight * by Charles Sheffield
*The Nimrod Hunt *by Charles Sheffield


If your just starting out in the Science fiction genre , I would recommend  reading not only the newer stuff but the older classic stuff as well.


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## Parson (Jul 8, 2019)

If you are truly new to this genre, Baylor's list might be overwhelming. I have often suggested that people unfamiliar with the genre read "*Ender's  Game" by Orson Scott Card.* All of those who read it enjoyed it. Some REALLY enjoyed it.


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## BAYLOR (Jul 8, 2019)

Parson said:


> If you are truly new to this genre, Baylor's list might be overwhelming. I have often suggested that people unfamiliar with the genre read "*Ender's  Game" by Orson Scott Card.* All of those who read it enjoyed it. Some REALLY enjoyed it.



Yes , my list is a bit huge, isn't it?  

*Enders Game* is definitely a good starting point


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## Vince W (Jul 9, 2019)

@BAYLOR's list is a very good cross-section but I always tell newcomers to start with some Robert A. Heinlein. His books are generally very accessible. *Space Cadet, Starman Jones, Have Spacesuit Will Travel, Starship Troopers, The Puppet Masters, Podkayne of Mars*, and many others are a good place to start.


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## Brian G Turner (Jul 9, 2019)

BAYLOR said:


> Yes , my list is a bit huge, isn't it?



Perhaps restrict your recommendations to no more than 5-10 next time? 



ltsetskhladze said:


> i want to start reading SFF books and i want to know with what to start and to give me best options there



Plenty of discussions here about various SFF books. As SFF if quite a wide genre, it might help to narrow it down to science fiction or fantasy. However, no harm in wanting to read both.


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## Rodders (Jul 9, 2019)

Stranger in a Strange Land was pretty mind blowing to me when I read it. A fair attempt at free thinking which is well worth a read, even now.

If you're new to the genre, I would suggest the short stories of Philip K. Dick (there are five volumes). It's a good introduction to some of his themes, which are varied and pretty often quite mind blowing.


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## Danny McG (Jul 9, 2019)

Brian G Turner said:


> Perhaps restrict your recommendations to no more than 5-10 next time?



It's BAYLOR, it's a big list...
That's what he does!


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## Narkalui (Jul 20, 2019)

Parson said:


> If you are truly new to this genre, Baylor's list might be overwhelming. I have often suggested that people unfamiliar with the genre read "*Ender's  Game" by Orson Scott Card.* All of those who read it enjoyed it. Some REALLY enjoyed it.


Yeah... Not me. I did finish it but... There were ideas that I liked but ultimately I think my problem was that I felt Ender was an over the top whiner.


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## acadena (Jul 20, 2019)

ltsetskhladze said:


> Hello i  want to start reading SFF books and i want to know with what to start and to give me best options there . i am really interested in sff and want to know recommendations of professions  . One of my friends suggested dark matter is it good ?



As a kid I loved the foundation series by ASIMOV
As an adult I think the three body problem by Cixin Liu


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## M. Robert Gibson (Jul 20, 2019)

If you are a total newbie, then I would suggest some of the early classics
*A Journey to the Centre of the Earth* by _Jules Verne_
*20,000 Leagues Under the Sea* by _Jules Verne_
*The War Of The Worlds* by _H. G. Wells_
*The Time Machine* by _H. G. Wells_

and a search for 'classic science fiction' will find many lists
Here's one such list where the authors have gone to a lot of trouble compiling it








						The Classics of Science Fiction
					

The Classics of Science Fiction list, compiled by James Wallace Harris and Anthony Bernardo, is an attempt to create a definitive list of the best Science Fiction books.




					www.worldswithoutend.com


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## Lew Rockwell Fan (Jul 20, 2019)

Ring World
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Fallen Angels (Niven: Pournelle; Flynn)
Trader to the  Stars (Anderson)
The Gods Themselves (Asimov)
The Probability Broach
Little Brother by Doctorow - YAF for smart kids, but  adults should enjoy it
Asimov's period anthologies like "Before the Golden Age"
The Stringers by Marttinel. He's not yet well known but he deserves to be and will be  if he doesn't  go into the gulag first.


That secnod F stands for fantasy, I assume:
Silverlock
Anything by L. Sprague de Camp

You might look at overlaps between recommendations.


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## Laura R Hepworth (Jul 21, 2019)

I really enjoyed *Time Traveler's Never Die* by Jack McDevitt. Madeline L'Engle's Time Quintet is an excellent series. Especially the first three books *A Wrinkle in Time*, *Wind in the Door*, and *Swiftly Tilting Planet*. There's also C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy (*Perelandra,* *Out of the Silent Plane*t, and *That Hideous Strength*). As for fantasy, I'd recommend anything by Tolkien.


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## Lew Rockwell Fan (Jul 21, 2019)

Has the delete button been deleted? Oh well,  I was going to edit this into my previous post,  but since I can't delete this post,  I'll put it back:


Narkalui said:


> Yeah... Not me. I did finish it but... .


I thought about saying that & chickened out. Tell the truth & shame the devil, the world needs more frankness.  Card, Frank Herbert, and James Blish are, to my taste, the most radically over-rated SF writers of all time.  But Card did win a Nebula and  a Hugo both  for the very novel I thought the most absurdly over-adulated,  so Parson is obviously in the majority.   De gustibus non disputandum.   OP might benefit from these kinds of opinions as well. 
I started grading everything I read when I was a child in the neolithic and tabulating the grades I gave.  Back in the day, there were a lot more short stories and less novels and in consequence you might go a while in between seeing stories by the same people & it could be hard to remember who was entertaining earlier.  I had a hard time keeping Poul Anderson and Frederick Pohl  straight  for example.  I discovered I liked them both.  But the biggest surprise was realizing that I really didn't like James Blish at all.   I had previously had the impression I did.   I think just because it's a cool name.  Blish.  Who the heck ever knew anybody named  "Blish"?  But it is  short, simple, easy to pronounce (even if only in the mind's ear), is in line with typical patterns of letter sequences in English words, and just odd enough to be slightly memorable.  I  suspect Isaac Asimov also benefited from a cool name,  but he would have been famous without that edge, because he really was a titan.


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## CTRandall (Jul 23, 2019)

There's lots of classics in these lists. A few more recent options are:

Madeline Miller's _Circe,_ an awesome take on an otherwise minor character from Greek myth. Also, one of the best opening lines of any novel ever: "When I was born, the word for what I was did not exist."

Elizabeth Moon's _Remnant Population_, a sci-fi antidote to the teen-angsty stuff that takes up a huge slice of the market

Stephen Graham Jones' _Mapping the Interior,_ this is what would've happened had Stephen King grown up on a reservation in the Midwest  

Scott Lynch's _The Lies of Locke Lamora,_ a fantasy novel that's happy to mix some fun into the usual deadly deadliness


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## Alex The G and T (Jul 24, 2019)

The term, "Mindblowing," brings to my mind, first,* Cordwainer Smith*. A collection of his shorts would be good:  _Mother Hittons Littul Kittens; A Planet Named Shayol; The Lady Who Sailed the Souls; Alpha Ralpha Boulevard._  All seriously, delightfully Weird.

Clifford D Simak has a delicious way of sucking the reader into odd situations that become increasingly weird.  Just when you think you have the situation figured out, he throws another weirdness into the works.   _The Big Front Yard_, novelette is classic.  Likewise, _Way Station_. In the novel _Destiny Doll_ we meet a truly bizarre bestiary, that keep piling on; getting weirder and weirder.

And... And...  I just realized that the OP never came back for three weeks.

f*ck it, I'm tired and I'm going to bed.


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## Ray Zdybrow (Jan 7, 2020)

ltsetskhladze said:


> Hello i  want to start reading SFF books and i want to know with what to start and to give me best options there . i am really interested in sff and want to know recommendations of professions  . One of my friends suggested dark matter is it good ?


Perhaps I have a narrow idea of "mindblowing", but you could try:
"Star Maker" by Olaf Stapledon
"Time Ships" by Stephen Baxter
"At The Mountains Of Madness" by HP Lovecraft.
All of these deal with unthinkable gulfs of time.


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## Rodders (Jan 7, 2020)

I read a couple of wonderful SF books in 2019 that i'd recommend without hesitation. 

Adrian Tchaikovsky's "Dogs of War". 
David William's "When the English Fall".


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## tegeus-Cromis (Jan 7, 2020)

I can't help but feel the OP, who hasn't been back since July, was trolling in some obscure way. That said, yeah, it feels like people have different definitions of "mind-blowing." Taking it to mean more than just great, or my favorite, of the recs so far I mainly agree with @Alex The G and T 's suggestion of Cordwainer Smith.


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