Top 10 Favorite Science Fiction / Fantasy Books

"One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them"

In Lord of the Rings, the hobbit Frodo Baggins sets out with his companions to destroy the evil Ring of Power that was found by his older cousin Bilbo Baggins, and restore peace to Middle Earth.

Lord of the Rings is #1 on the NPR list, and it's also my personal #1 favorite fantasy book series. I first read these books when I was in high school, and I remember being enthralled with the elves and with Strider / Aragorn, and terrified of the Nazgul.  To give you an idea of how geeky my husband and I are, as a wedding gift I gave him a hard-cover copy of LOTR with gilt-edged pages. And he re-reads it every 2 - 3 years.  

Although Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy isn't in my personal top 10 scifi / fantasy books, it's a ridiculously funny read. 

In Hitchhiker, Adams spoofs the hard-core science fiction themes of space travel, aliens, and interstellar war, and makes these ideas seem very commonplace and silly.

At the beginning of this saga, Arthur Dent is rescued by an alien only moments before the Earth is destroyed (to make room for a hyperspace bypass), and goes off to explore the galaxy.  

Readers describe the book as "brilliant insanity" and "inspired lunacy".

Ender's Game is in my top 5 personal favorite science fiction books, and it's also been a favorite of one of my sons, who says he's read the book at least 10 times.   Our copy is well-worn!

In Ender's Game, the Earth is trying to figure out how to battle insect-like aliens who have attacked Earth twice already.   There are government programs for breeding military geniuses and training them as soldiers to fight the "Buggers", or insect-like aliens.  The young boy, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin, is one of these geniuses, and is drafted to the orbiting Battle School for military training.

Part of my fascination with this book is the look at the underlying psychology of the main characters. 

Ender's Game - The Movie will come out in March, 2013.

Dune, the first novel of the Dune Chronicles, is another in my personal top 5 favorite scifi / fantasy books.  It has a good blend of both science fiction and fantasy themes: space travel between planets, generations-long genetic experiments to produce super-humans, and mysticism and the development of psychic abilities through the use of the special Melange spice.

Due to treachery against his family, the young Paul Atreides is thrown out into the harsh desert environment of Arrakis (Dune), and learns to survive with the desert-dwelling Fremen.   He becomes the mysterious Muad'dib, a messiah-like figure, for that world.

This is the only series I haven't read in this top 10 science fiction / fantasy book list, and you can be sure it's now on my to-read list!

(Update -- spring 2012 -- I'm on the third book, and have finished watching the first season.  I am hooked!)

The Song of Ice and Fire Series takes place on a planet where the seasons are long -- summers and winters each last for years, not months. 

In first book of the series, A Game of Thrones, winter is coming to the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, which resembles Middle Ages Europe.  There are multi-level plots throughout the book, including a political battle for the throne, and non-humans to the north are starting their advance southward before winter sets in.

A Game of Thrones has been made into an HBO television series.

Nineteen Eighty-Four (or 1984) was published in 1949, and was one of the dystopian books that was required reading when I was in high school (1970 - 1973).  I remember that it was a thought-provoking book, but rather gloomy.

1984 takes place in a province of Oceania, where there is perpetual war, all-pervasive government surveillance, and mind-control.   Terms that we're familiar with now, such as Big Brother, though-police, and double-think, were introduced in the book 1984.  The term Orwellian refers to official deception and secret surveillance in a society.

Fahrenheit 451 , written in 1953, is another dystopian novel that takes place in a totalitarian regime, and another book that was required reading in my high school.

In this book, reading is outlawed to suppress dissenting ideas, and firemen are ordered to burn all books, and the houses where books are found.   The title, Fahrenheit 451, is the temperature at which paper burns.  

Author Ray Bradbury commented that the book isn't that much about censorship, but "a story about how television destroys interest in reading literature, which leads to a perception of knowledge as being composed of factoids, partial information devoid of context." (Fahrenheit 451 : Wikipedia )

Foundation and its sequels were among my favorite science fiction books when I was younger, and I'm guessing that they'd be equally enjoyable if I read them again.

This series takes place far in the future, when humankind has spread throughout the galaxy.  Mathemetician, Hari Seldon, has developed a branch of mathematics called psychohistory, in which the future of civilization can be scientifically predicted.  Hari predicts the Galactic Empire will fall, and a following dark age will last for centuries.  To shorten this dark age, Hari and followers put together two Foundations at opposite ends of the Galaxy, as places to safe-guard all human knowledge.

Brave New World, written in 1931, is another engrossing dystopian novel that we were required to read in high school.

In this 2540 AD society, humans are bred genetically and born in labs, and they're anesthetized to "fight depression", but more so to remain complacent under the ruling forces.  There's no violence, and all needs are provided, but the main character, Bernard Marx, feels that there should be more to life.

The refreshing, innovative American Gods is the most recently published book (2001) on this top 10 list.   My sons recommended this book to us (they're both huge Neil Gaiman fans), and it's unlike any book I've read before. 

The main character, Shadow, has just been released from prison, and is given a job by the enigmatic Wednesday as a bodyguard, driver, and errand runner.

The idea behind the book is that gods and other mythological creatures such as elves, dwarves, and other spirits exist because people believe in them.   These older mythological creatures from the "Old World" are becoming weaker because current society's "gods" are being paid more attention (money, power, fame).   A battle is brewing between the old "gods" and the new.