I haven't read much SF for years, but decided to reread some recently and found it just as captivating as i did back then. What would your top ten be? I discount fantasy books though. Maybe that should be a different thread.

!. "gateway" by fred Pohl
2. "The Mote in Gods Eye" by Larry Niven/Jerry Pournelle
3. "Forever War" by Joe Haldeman
4. "Forge of God" by Greg bear
5. "Foundation Trilogy" by Isaac Asimov
6. "darwins radio" by Greg bear
7. "Nightsdawn trilogy" by peter hamilton
8. "Mindbridge" by Joe haldeman
9. "xeelee series" by stephen baxter
10."Orbitsville" by Bob Shaw

I agree with The Mote In God's Eye. It's a great book.

I would have to include Rendezvous With Rama by Arthur C Clark.
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
War Of The Worlds / The Time Machine - H G Wells
Ring World series Larry Niven

[Deleted by the author on 30 April 2009 21:02 BST]

really difficult to organise into a ten, but here's ten of my faves of all time...im afraid there are whole series in there too...
william gibson: neuromancer/burning chrome/mona lisa overdrive/idoru/all tomorrows parties/virtual light
issac asimov: pretty much all of it!!! i read him when i was younger though - and found it much more relevant than nowadays
joe haldeman:forever war (great book)
arthur c clarkes rama series (how BIG does this story get!!!-fanatastic!!)
alaistair reynolds chasm city/revelation space/redemption ark/pushing ice (similar to rama-ish), house of suns(wow-SCALE) - reynolds is my fave ever for hardcore darkgothic cyberkiller spaceoperas! (so modern, so high powered)
neal stephensons snow crash,cryptonomicon (snow crash probably being my single most fave book ever)
peter f hamiltons night dawn trilogy (the reality dysfunction etc - gets a little repetetive though)
peter f hamiltons commonwealth saga (pandora's star etc)
iain m banks, the algebraist/matter etc
then to finish off some classics by robert a heinlein (time enough for love) and maybe a bit of robert silverberg..
and just to add, maybe put neil stephensons 'baroque cycle' in there, starting with the four books ago prequel to crytonomicon- Quicksilver. Neal Stephensons joy of the use of language- its science, is fabulous...

These are not necessarily in order, and I've stuck to one book per author ( I could have chosen several by Banks, Clarke and Pohl). Some of them are parts of series, but read well enough on their own:

* Arthur C. Clarke, Rendezvous with Rama
* Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed
* Iain M. Banks, The Player of Games
* William Gibson, Neuromancer
* Ken MacLeod, The Cassini Division
* Alistair Reynolds, The Prefect
* Robert Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land
* Bryan Talbot, The Adventures of Luther Arkwright (so what if it's a comic book?)
* Frederik Pohl, The Space Merchants (Gateway is good, but I think I prefer this)
* Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale

Yeah Atwood's book is a real corker, of course there's the ones we just take for granted like "1984" and "brave new world." Haven't read much current SF, must catch up on it.

yeah all these are worthy of inclusion. I should have included "rama".
I wish hollywood would do a remake of war of the worlds but set in the period it was actually written. They seem to do it for the time machine though the remake of that was truly appalling.
Have tried reading iain banks novels but i just can't get on with them.

Of course Heinlein is the Master, but pretty well anything by John Wyndham, especially 'The day of the Triffids' or 'The Outward Urge', then there is ee 'doc' Smith, amidst all his 'space opera' he could sometimes be quite profound. In fact, although people can be quite scathing about SF there's a lot of really good stuff out there - old and new. Lois McMaster Bujold's 'Falling Free' is absolutely brilliant (and should be required reading by just about everybody) and Modesitt jr's 'Adiamante' and his Ecolitan and Empire stories are good too. Also Tanya Huff's Confederation of Valor series is developing nicely. There are a great many writers where the line between SF and Fantasy is not easily seen - Anne McCaffrey's Pern stories seemed like fantasy at first but eventually turned out to be SF, so I'm reluctant to commit myself to just 10. As for films, personally I find films a disappointment - my imagination does a much better job even with the special effects they have these days.

What about Frank Herbert and the Dune series?

Three Bs
Brin; Startide Rising
Bester; Tiger, Tiger
Bear; Blood music

Just the ones that spring to mind at this moment:

Iain M. Banks - Consider Phlebas
William Gibson - Neuromancer
Frank Herbert - Dune
Arthur C. Clarke - Rendevous With Rama
Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle - The Mote In God's Eye
Robert Heinlein - Stranger In A Strange Land
Orson Scott Card - Ender's Game
Alfred Bester - The Demolished Man
John Wyndham - The Kraken Wakes

Notable series would have to include:
Gibson's Sprawl books
Banks' Culture novels
Gordon R Dickson's Dorsai saga
Asimov's Foundation Trilogy
Alan Dean Foster's Commonwealth series, especially Midworld and Sentenced To Prism
& Le Guin's Pern stories

Number Six - Consider Phlebas isn't sci-fi, it's contemporary fiction. I just re-read it a couple of weeks ago!

Here are some of my faves (not in order), which do include an Iain Banks sci fi book ;)

Iain Banks, The Player of Games (Use of Weapons is also a favourite but PoG is more accessible)
Douglas Adams, Hitch Hikers' trilogy (mainly the first two, actually - the others are funny but stretch the point a bit)
Isaac Asimov, Foundation Trilogy - unoriginal, I know :(
Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game - Speaker for the Dead is also very good
Robert Heinlein - hard to choose, but I really like Friday and Glory Road.
Elizabeth Moon, the Serrano books. Terrific space-opera sci-fi!
Charles Sheffield - also difficult to choose, maybe Sight of Proteus or Between the Strokes of Night
John Wyndham, Trouble with Lichen

That's only 8 authors but I have mentioned more than 10 books so I'll leave it at that :)

what about william burroughs , any one of his books has more origional ideas in it than in the average writers entire output , try Cities of the red night as an easy introdution . Edmund cooper was another underated writer read 'the overman culture'

Very tricky to only pick 10. Still, if i was ever stuck on a desert asteroid, these are the 10 I couldn't do without (setting two rules ... NO series ... only one book per author).

1. Transit - Edmund Cooper
2. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - Heinlein
3. Lucifer's Hammer - Niven & Pournelle
4. Six gates from Limbo - JT McIntosh
5. The HAB Theory - Allan W Eckert
6. Night Walk - Bob Shaw
7. A Wrinkle in the Skin - John Christopher
8. Z for Zachariah - Robert C. O'Brien
9. The Crysalids - John Wyndham
10. The Lathe of Heaven - Ursula K LeGuin

Amazed no Larry Niven in here. Protector is an incredible concept and story, although a combination of two short stories. It als sets the intitial scene for the Ringworld and a host of other Know Space stories.

1) The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood (also the best book Ihave ever read)
2) The Chrysalids, John Wyndham (the first sci-fi I ever read)
3) Death of Grass, John Christopher
4) Deathworld, Harry Harrison
5) Planet of Exile, Ursula LeGuin
6) Darwin's Radio, Greg Bear
7) On the Beach, Neville Shute
8) Nightwings, Robert Silverberg
9) Contact, Carl Sagan
10) Hitchhikers Guide, Douglas Adams

sorry, I forgot Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes

1.1984 - Orwell
2.Dune - Herbert
3.Behold the Man - Moorcock
4.Helliconia - Aldiss
5.Star Maker - Stapledon
6.Earth Abides - Stewart
7.Day of the Triffids - Wyndham
8.War of the Worlds - Wells
9.Slaughterhouse 5 - Vonnegut
10.Foundation - Asimov

1. Excession - Banks
2. Altered Carbon - Morgan
3. Only Forward - MM Smith
4. Nemisis - Asimov
5. All 3 Nights Dawn Books - Hamilton
6. The mote in Gods eye - Niven and Pournell
7. Summertide series - Sheffield
8. Anything by the late great Douglas Adams
9. Revelation Space - Reynolds
10. And an old, old favourite of mine from my youth The Giants series - J P Hogan

I'm not going to post a list, though respect to those who have.
Where's the Philip K. Dick though? Surely the likes of Flow My Tears The Policeman Said, A Scanner Darkly and Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? all deserve some recognition.
Similarly, Mary Shelley for Frankenstein, Robert Louis Stephenson for Jeckyll... and H.P. Lovecraft have to get some props for their cultural influence.

Anything written by Bob Shaw.

Difficult to pin down this one because I could keep changing my mind. So I don't know if these are the best but they are favourites (and in no particular order).

1. `Ender's Game' by Orson Scott Card.
2. `The Time Machine' by H. G. Wells.
3. `The Gods Themselves' by Isaac Asimov.
4. `Only Forward' by Michael Marshall Smith.
5. `Fairyland' by Paul J. McAuley.
6. `The Caves of Steel' by Isaac Asimov.
7. `The Sparrow' by Mary Doria Russell.
8. `Akira' by Katsuhiro Otomo.
9. `Transmetropolitan' by Warren Ellis & Darick Robertson.
10. `A Princess of Mars' by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

My favourites so far are:

Enders Game by Orson Scott Card,
Eon by Greg Bear
1984 by George Orwell.
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
UBIK by Philip K Dick
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K Dick.

Here is my ten pence worth, and like one of the others on here, I have listed more than 10 books and short stories.

1) E C TUBB series - Dumerest Saga
2) Eric Frank Russell - Next of Kin, Wasp, Dear Devil, Late night final
3) F. Paul Wilson - Healer and 'The Lanague Chronicles'
4) Philip E High - Invader on my back
5) Robert Silverberg - Across a Billion years
6) Clifford D. Simak - Way Station, A Choice of Gods, Catface
7) Robert A. Heinlein - The Doorway into Summer

And finally I should chuck my book in as well, seeing as I enjoyed it so much.

8) Robert Dowell -The Lazarus Principle

My favourites (includes a couple of series):
1. Pournelle - The Prince
2. Weber - Honor Harrington series
3. Karen Traviss - Wess'Har series
4. Niven - Ringworld
5. McCaffrey - Death of Sleep/Sassinak
6. Heinlein - Time Enough for Love
7. Lee & Miller - Local Custom
8. Niven & Pournelle - Footfall
9. Le Guin - Left Hand of Darkness
10. Lord of the Rings (not really SF but how can we ignore it?)