What are the best first contact novels

[Bick]

i love eternity road by McDevitt

Yes, good book. It’s not first contact though?

 

[Extollager]

James Gunn's The Listeners
James White's All Judgment Fled
Michael Flynn's Eifelheim
Algis Budrys's "Rogue Moon" -- a novella, but it was published as a paperback novel, too.

I'd sure like to read a new-to-me book as much to my liking as that White. Robert Charles Wilson's Spin was pretty good, as I recall, but probably not as much to my liking as these three.

I'd rate C. S. Lewis's Out of the Silent Planet as my favorite first contact novel except that it could be objected it's disqualified, as, when the main character goes to the planet and meets the inhabitants, he is taken to that world by unscrupulous earthmen who have been there once before.

 

[Ethics_gradient]

I reread Spin last year and it was way more of a soap opera than I remembered. Dallas with aliens.

 

[Pyan]

Already mentioned, but I'd go for Have Spacesuit, Will Travel, by RAH, and Rendezvous with Rama by ACC, and I'd add Footfall, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle.

 

[senlac]

have spacesuit will travel

The Heinlein juvenile, yes? Early Heinlein was good if sometimes cringeworthy

 

[tobl]

The Heinlein juvenile, yes? Early Heinlein was good if sometimes cringeworthy

i like most of his books and for me some of them are actually masterpieces

 

[tachyon]

Another good one is Peter Watts' Blindsight.

 

[Guttersnipe]

Does The War of the Worlds count?

 

[hitmouse]

Yes

 

[Montero]

Hellspark by Janet Kagan. Group of scientists investigating an alien planet. Beautifully complicated both in terms of the planet and the group of scientists who come from many different societies. Kagan was very interested in interpersonal body language and personal distances and part of the story is the scientists learning to work together.

 

[pogopossum]

I would go with Mote In God's Eye as it performs the difficult task of making the aliens inhuman but also
understandable. For sheer altrnate perspective, perhaps Roadside Picnic? You don't see em, but it's definately a unique contact.
I am old. Read Heinlein when he was about the only quality juv. SF. (Well there was Andre Norton - but read her later)
Heinlein, somewhat cringeworthy in retrospect. But Have Space Suit - Will Travel and other of his juv. stuff introduced otherness to a lot of kids
(I am 72) of that era.
And I would re-read them before giving them to impressionable grandkids, but only because I would hope that they would speak to them too.

 

[Pyan]

Does The War of the Worlds count?

I'd agree with hitmouse - First Contact works both ways, home or away.

Heinlein's books are stuffed with first contacts, from Lazarus Long's meeting with the Jockeira in Methuselah's Children to the crew of the Gay Deceiver and the Black Hats in The Number of the Beast.

 

[Venusian Broon]

For sheer altrnate perspective, perhaps Roadside Picnic? You don't see em, but it's definately a unique contact.

Possibly more of a 'half first contact' as the aliens may not have realised humans existed. Or possibly human's first contact with alien junk

 

[tobl]

I'd agree with hitmouse - First Contact works both ways, home or away.

Heinlein's books are stuffed with first contacts, from Lazarus Long's meeting with the Jockeira in Methuselah's Children to the crew of the Gay Deceiver and the Black Hats in The Number of the Beast.

have you read pankera?

 

[tobl]

Heinlein, somewhat cringeworthy in retrospect. But Have Space Suit - Will Travel and other of his juv. stuff introduced otherness to a lot of kids
(I am 72) of that era.
And I would re-read them before giving them to impressionable grandkids, but only because I would hope that they would speak to them too.

cringeworthy why? the older i get the more brilliant i think he was.

 

[Pyan]

have you read pankera?

Not yet - it's not out until April in the UK.

 

[tobl]

Not yet - it's not out until April in the UK.

not that i like but there are ebooks?

 

[Pyan]

Not on Kindle, either.

 

[BAYLOR]

Invasion of the Body Snatchers by Jack Finney
The Puppet Masters by Robert A . Heinlein
The High Crusade by Poul Anderson
Invaders From Rigel by Fletcher Pratt
The Black Cloud by Frederick Hoyle
The Killing Star by Charles Pelligrino and George Zebrowski

 

[tobl]

Not on Kindle, either.

really? because i'm seeing him completely vailable on amazon.com.... i don't think there are differences in ebooks if you buy them from the usa or great britain...