I suppose this could serve as something of a 'favorite books' thread, since I didn't want to start one myself, and could not find a suitable one.
Anyway, last time I posted in here, I said I was reading Cradle, by Arthur C Clarke and Gentry Lee. Don't read it. I seriously doubt that Clarke had much to do with it, since A) it was all horrible, B) it had way too many sex scenes (Clarke's had a few, but this was excessive and much too... descriptive compared to Clarke's others), and C) it has a much more optimistic, even affirming, view of religion (specifically Christianity, one of the main characters is a 'fallen holy man' of sorts) than I've ever seen with Clarke, who has been quoted comparing religion to a virus.
Currently I'm on book four out of five of the Foundation series, by Isaac Asimov. Believe it or not, NO ROBOTS! It's hard to believe, since Asimov has been a bit of a one note guy with the Three Rules, he must have a hundred stories on them. It's a very good book, full of cool concepts, lots of good old Sci-Fi irony, and the fall of a galaxy-spanning empire. In fact it is a well hidden fact compared to his usual novels, but it is actually much like his others, being more like a collection of short stories on a sci-fi theme. However this one is presented as a continuos story much better. One gripe I have with it is that the first three books is that, being written in the 1940s-50s, they have a couple passages that show their age. For instance, in the third book, I believe, a character is explaining a device he needs produced to an engineer, and he says something like, "By Space, that's hundreds of circuits!"...
Also, I'm about to read Ender's Game, and possibly more of the books in that series. I also am
finally getting around to continuing with the Dune saga, once I finish up Foundation, as I'm sure Mormon will be glad to hear. Basically I'm working off of this list for good reading material, provided by mormon.
http://users.tpg.com.au/sykespj/scif...oks_rank1.html
Some of my personal favorites, other than those I've listed, are Dune, Jurassic Park, Prey, Timeline, The Light of Other Days (Clarke, underrated), the 2001 series, I, Robot, Do Android Dream of Electric Sheep?, The Bicentennial Man (and other of Asimov's many short story colletions on Robots and the Three Rules), and the Foundation series.