Good Sci-Fi/Fantasy Books?

Hey all! I'm at a loss here. I want to buy my fiance some books for Christmas and sci-fi/fantasy is his fav. I like them too, but I'm a little out of touch, I guess. Can anyone recommend some good ones too me? Here's what I know he's read....

- Dune (whole series)
- Ender's Game (whole series)
- Most anything Forgotten Realms
- Terry Brook's Shannara (whole series)
- Lord of the Rings
- Harry Potter (whole series)
- All of Alan Dean Foster's stuff
- All of Anne McCaffrey

We also have the following which he hasn't read yet:

- Wheel of Time
- Feast for Crows, etc.
- Dresden Files
- Terry Goodkind's series

Thanks in advance!!!! <3

Calling all sci-fi geeks. - I'm trying to remember the name of a series of books. A group of aliens visit Earth and recruited people to fight their enemies. Earthlings were the best fighters in the universe because our planet had the most violent culture. The other aliens they were fighting used mind control to assimilate all other creatures to their culture. These aliens eventually discovered that if they altered a portion of the humans' brains then they could use their mind control on the humans. Before they did this if they tried to use mind control on the humans it would hurt or kill the creature who tried to use it.

There were at least 5 or 6 books in this series. I last read them when my son was a toddler and I'd love to revisit the series.

Can anyone help?

Whoa.  Deja vu.

Well, no one answered and I'm so curious now that I feel the need to tie someone up and make them write haiku.

Mooni, is it the Vampire Earth series by E.E. Knight?

That doesn't sound right. I think the word "war" was in the title, but all I keep coming back to is War of the Worlds which is another great book.

Mooni, The Damned series by Alan Dean Foster.

1st book is titled A Call To Arms.

Ding ding ding! Thank you sharpshootinstar! You're my hero. That's it. I loved that series.

thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you. This has been driving me crazy for the last couple of days.

I used to work in a bookstore.  I'm good with the searching ;) You're welcome.

I would like to second the motion for Armor by Steakley and Enchantment by Orson Scott Card.

There was a series called the Death Gate Series/Cycle (can't remember) by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman that I very much enjoyed several years back.  It has 7 books, I believe. The first book is called Dragon Wing.  I still have a crush on the main character of the series...anyone a Haplo lover? ;)

C.S. Lewis wrote a sci fi trilogy, but if religious influences in novels bother you or your gift intendee, then maybe you won't like it.  It doesn't bother me, and I think they're really interesting to read.  They're called Out of the Silent Planet, That Hideous Strength and Perelandra.

The Host by Stephenie Meyer (woman who wrote the Twilight books - do vampires count as fantasy?) is different from any sci-fi I have ever read.  I thought it was great.

Of course I loved Stranger in a Strange Land by Heinlein...

The Philip Pullman ones were interesting too, The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass.

I also like Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale.  She doesn't think of herself as a science fiction writer, but hey...

I received some fantasy books by a German author for my birthday last month, but I can't recommend them yet because I haven't read them yet.  :) I'll keep you posted though if they turn out to be great.

That's all I've got for you now...gotta get back to work. ;)

 

Original Post by sharpshootinstar:

I used to work in a bookstore.  I'm good with the searching ;) You're welcome.

Ok, I have another one for you. I haven't read this series since the early 80's. There are at least 2 or 3 of them. The name has something to do with "rings", but definitely isn't Ringworld.

There is some sort of spaceship that was built by another culture which is now run by some crazy feminine type of alien/goddess/witch. It is sci-fi but also fantasy. The world is a ring with 6 spokes. To get from one sector to the other you have to travel across or through the spokes. There are different kinds of creatures in each of the spokes. I'm thinking this world/spaceship came into our solar system and began to orbit near the neptune/uranus, but I could be mistaken on that. One of the main types of creatures were "horse people". They had bodies like horses, but torsos of humans. They were both male and female. The horse body had a penis at the back and a vagina at the front and could both impregnate or be pregnant. A group of humans were sent to explore this world and then in a later book humans began to settle in the world. The alien/goddess kept creating more and weirder and meaner creatures.

I'll do some hunting over the weekend and let you know if I come up with anything.

You're a sweet heart sharp! I've been wracking my brain about that set of books. I don't think I read the last book or finished reading the last book. Someone gave me the first book. It was a fascinating series. I've mentioned this plotline to quite a few sci-fi lovers since the mid 90's and no one remembers it.

Original Post by kazanoodle:

You need to get your hands on Lois McMaster Bujold.  (Well, her books, I mean; I doubt she'd appreciate a manhandling grope. xP)  Brilliant writer.  I utterly devoured her Vor books.  With your diverse and very cool palate, I'm surprised you haven't found her yet.

Start with Cordelia's Honor and just go from there. =)

Oh hell yeah, nothing but the best quality - check out www. baen . com for free sample "the mountians of morning" and sample chapters of all the Vor books.

Original Post by julique:

C.S. Lewis wrote a sci fi trilogy, but if religious influences in novels bother you or your gift intendee, then maybe you won't like it.  It doesn't bother me, and I think they're really interesting to read.  They're called Out of the Silent Planet, That Hideous Strength and Perelandra.

The Host by Stephenie Meyer (woman who wrote the Twilight books - do vampires count as fantasy?) is different from any sci-fi I have ever read.  I thought it was great.

 

I can't BELIEVE I didn't think of the CS Lewis books. He is a Christian and has talked about reading them in the past after he read Mere Christianity. THANK YOU SO MUCH! Also, I just can't imagine reading something by Stephenie Meyer. *shudder* In a few years, maybe. But I read a random paragraph out of Twilight. It was such a bad paragraph, I couldn't get over it. At least not this year. ;-P

If he likes Forgotten Realms, he'll like the Dragonlance series by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. Start with the Chronicles Trilogy, "Dragons of Autumn Twilight".  (then "of Winter Night", then "of Spring Dawning".)

Garfield Reeves-Stevens wrote a really good modern-day vampire novel with Bloodshift, and a decent book with an interesting concept with Children of the Shroud (DNA from shroud of turin used to father IVF babies, who turn out to have supernatural powers. Was written before the shroud was thoroughly debunked).

I like the Nantucket series by S.M. Stirling, though the first book (Island in the Sea of Time) is by far the best of the three and can be a stand-alone.

I also recommend Waking the Moon by Elizabeth Hand, though I haven't liked any more of her stuff since then.

And get him to read the George RR Martin stuff that you already have. My BF can't stop raving about that series...

Original Post by tincognito:

Original Post by julique:

C.S. Lewis wrote a sci fi trilogy, but if religious influences in novels bother you or your gift intendee, then maybe you won't like it.  It doesn't bother me, and I think they're really interesting to read.  They're called Out of the Silent Planet, That Hideous Strength and Perelandra.

The Host by Stephenie Meyer (woman who wrote the Twilight books - do vampires count as fantasy?) is different from any sci-fi I have ever read.  I thought it was great.

 

I can't BELIEVE I didn't think of the CS Lewis books. He is a Christian and has talked about reading them in the past after he read Mere Christianity. THANK YOU SO MUCH! Also, I just can't imagine reading something by Stephenie Meyer. *shudder* In a few years, maybe. But I read a random paragraph out of Twilight. It was such a bad paragraph, I couldn't get over it. At least not this year. ;-P

 Sure! 

I've heard some people say the same thing about the Twilight books - but hey, I loved them.  ;)