- The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
- The Warrior's Apprentice or other Vorkosigan novels
- Three Hearts and Three Lions
- A Ship of the Line or other Hornblower novels
- Kim
- The Mote in God's Eye
- Guards, Guards! or other Discworld novels
- The Well of the Unicorn
- The Face in the Frost
What's your list?
Addendum: The reasons I like them are different. Mote is, as advertised, the quintessential First Contact novel. Moon and Well of the Unicorn are for the ideas. The Vorkosigan, Hornblower and Discworld books for the characters, with extra points to Hornblower for the history, and Discworld for the humor. Kim is for the setting, the little details of India which Kipling obviously knew and loved. Three Hearts and Face in the Frost make this list because they each build to a great climax--they're good stories.
Addendum: The reasons I like them are different. Mote is, as advertised, the quintessential First Contact novel. Moon and Well of the Unicorn are for the ideas. The Vorkosigan, Hornblower and Discworld books for the characters, with extra points to Hornblower for the history, and Discworld for the humor. Kim is for the setting, the little details of India which Kipling obviously knew and loved. Three Hearts and Face in the Frost make this list because they each build to a great climax--they're good stories.
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3 comments:
1. Starship Troopers
2. The Lotus Eaters (just re-read it)
3. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
4. Lucifer's Hammer
5. Ringworld
6. 1632
7. Four Lords of the Diamond (omnibus)
8. Childhood's End
Assuming we stick to Fiction
1. The Chronicles of the Black Company (Glen Cook)
2. The Lord of the Rings (J.R.R. Tolkien)
3. The Fionavar Tapestry (Guy Gavriel Kay)
4. The Peshawr Lancers (S.M. Stirling)
5. Dune (Frank Herbert)
6. Hammers Slammers (David Drake)
7. Star Wars: The Han Solo Adventures (Brian Daley)
8. The Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide (1st Edition)
9. Altered Carbon (Richard Morgan)
10. Citizen of the Galaxy or Time for the Stars or Starman Jones (Robert A. Heinlein)
I picked these mostly for the impact they made on me when I first read them.
I remember all 3 of the books in #10 hitting me hard as a young reader - they had unforgiving outcomes for some lovable characters while still being good yarns.
#2 was what started me down the path to Fantasy and SF and D&D and all that followed. It also fired my interest in folklore, mythology, history, archaeology, and languages.
#3 is an omnibus of a trilogy. I loved it as a different turn on a classic mythology. And it had one of the most powerful sections in the second book that I have ever read. I identified with the character tacked to the Summer Tree very deeply.
#4 has the colonial subcontinent feel, but is set in the future, with a past changed by cataclysmic events. It also has a really interesting supporting character in the form of a very tough Sikh.
#5 taught me about Merchant Houses in a way that Romeo and Juliet barely touched. And it taught me about mystery even in sci-fi (the Bene Gesserit, the Kwisatz Haderach, the Guild Navigators, Liet Kynes, the Worms, the Fremen, etc).
#6 introduced me to military SF and awakened in me an interest in harder sci-fi with a military bent.
%7 came from the early days, when not much had been told about Lucas' universe and he hadn't tried to remake his first trilogy nor had he produced the abomination of dialog from the second trilogy. Books hadn't detailed every minor character. This series told three unrelated stories of Han and Chewie and the Falcon in the Corporate Sector. The stories were interesting and the way Daley subtly exposed a few key and unknown aspects of Han's backstory was wonderful. I learned what a Corellian Blood Stripe was and how Han had gotten on the wrong side of the Empire after having flown TIE fighters. You also got more of a sense of these two friends and their ragtag life before the transformations in the movies.
#9 is just damn good sci-fi in the post-human/cyberpunk sort of period. Like Gibson, but less pretentious.
#8 opened up a whole new world for me and led to me making and keeping some of the best friends and best memories of my life.
#1 is a multi-volume ominbus. It's only the first part of a fabulous series. The cultures in it are interesting and drawn from parts of the world I didn't know a lot about. The magic is interesting, the enemies have a Morgoth or Sauron sized scope, and sometimes some of them end up allies. The protagonists vary by volume throughout the series, representing the annals of a company of mercenaries. Cook as an immersive writing style, solid characterization, and a keen eye for culture.
For your wonderful list, I give you:
http://animuslibri.blogspot.com/2010/06/your-ten-top-non-fiction-books.html
Hmmm. Now I re-read your title, "Must Read" books is another slant.
Overall, I'd have said:
1. LOTR
2. Prince and the Discourses
3. The Art of War
4. MIAHM
5. Collected works of John Locke
6. Collected works of Tacitus
7. Collected works of Winston Churchill
8. Aikido with Ki
9. The Holy Bible (King James Ed)
10. The Anabasis
Some of these aren't on my shelf, unless the Internet counts. It really should, nowadays.
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