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Gawd ... very hard to pick "just one" ...
"Ender's Game" and sequels
Any of "The Expanse" books
"Oath of Fealty"
The Ringworld / Tales of Known Space series
Anything by Iain M Banks, ditto William Gibson, Philip Jose Farmer (especially Riverworld), the Late Great DNA,
Haldeman's "Forever War" series
"The Stainless Steel Rat" series.
Then there is Heinlein, Vonnegut, some of Philip K Dick's stuff was amazing.
Zelazny's tales of Corwin, prince of Amber.
Nah. There is no "Best ever SF book" - there is just "Best right at this moment" when you are in the mood and reading it ...
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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OriginalGriff wrote: Nah. There is no "Best ever SF book" - there is just "Best right at this moment" when you are in the mood and reading it ...
I say more or less the same for music.
Every moment has its music and every music has its moment 
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Oath of Fealty is on my list, posted below. Zelazny's Roadmarks is also one of my favorites.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Grunt - by Mary Gentle
This crosses a boundary between SciFi and D&D Fantasy. Told from the perspective of the Goblins who happen across a stash of rather unique weaponry and other "influences". That stash and the influences link the SciFi in.
How can you not help cheer when a knighy in shining armor gets taken out by a goblin?
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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There are three books in the "Orcs" series[^] - where the humans are not the heroes. Hadn't thought about them for years!
[edit]
And another three in the "Bad Blood" series I just found out - not tried them!
[/edit]
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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I may give them a try.
One thing about the one I posted (only one like it I read, anyway) is that it broaches into SciFi, as well. Trying to stick with the thread on a first-level response. Reading Grunt was just a lot of fun. Found by accident: whilst I used to start to work on a commuter rail they had a waiting room. Within the room was a book-rack (instituted by the near-by library) for books to just take with you. I loaned it to my son (the now-adult to whom I read Hobbit and Lord of the Rings aloud) when he was a wee lad.
Like "Lord of the Rings", Grunt ended too soon.
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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I'd forgotten about this gem!
Must re-read it
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Ender's Game and Hitchhiker's Guide are both brilliant. My favourite is the Red Rising series by Pierce Brown, it's a dystopian novel with the good old "topple the hierarchy" thing, but it's really well written and combines both space-exploration and Greek mythology.
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Rage wrote: what would be your best SciFi book ?
I like the one's from Steve Alten. I've read all but the (government) conspiracy ones.
"One man's wage rise is another man's price increase." - Harold Wilson
"Fireproof doesn't mean the fire will never come. It means when the fire comes that you will be able to withstand it." - Michael Simmons
"You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him." - James D. Miles
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As have already been said, there is a lot of good SciFi out there.
- Pohl: The heechees series, Merchant wars...
- Heinlein: The moon is a bad mistress, Friday...
- Crichton: Jurasic parc, State of fear
- Asimov: Foundation serie
- Herbert: Dune serie (although some are not that good)
- Schätzing: Limit
- I don't know how it is called in english but the plot is that every human being that reached more than 5 years old is resurrected all at once in a world were basic needs are automatically covered by some allien technology. 5 or 6 books
-...
-...
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Riverworld is what you are looking for: Riverworld - Wikipedia[^] - I mentioned it above, good stuff!
Just watch out when searching for P.J.Farmer books at work: some of his stuff was pr0n with a SF / Fantasy setting - "Image of the Beast" and "Blown" for example ... 
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Nelek wrote: - Heinlein: The moon is a bad harsh mistress,
FTFY
That is where Mycroft comes from 
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity -
RAH
I'm old. I know stuff - JSOP
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Thanks for the correction... I didn't search the proper name, just translated it on the fly.
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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I have a golden rule about SciFi - if the core story could be written for any other genre, then it ain't SciFi.
This puts Carl Sagan's 'Contact' at the top of a pretty short list.
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Chris C-B wrote: if the core story could be written for any other genre, then it ain't SciFi.
I am puzzled by your logic: No great love story can be SF. No critical assessment of anarchism, or any other political / social structure, can be SF. No mystery can be SF. If story is bases on philosophical or moral issues, it cant' be SF. ... So, what is left for SF? No nothing. Pure drivel - that is what it sounds like to me.
I strongly disagree. I have read loads of SF books of great value as love stories, as political / social comment and criticism, as great mysteries, as philosophical or moral issues.
I haven't read 'Contact', but my first guess (from the summary in Wikipedia) is that I would see a lot of elements in it belonging in other genres, once you look behind that hardcore SF setting. The setting is required, if you want to direct a spotlight from that direction onto political and social issues, but as a mere storyteller's tool - the real story is not the high-tech spaceships and signals from remote galaxies.
A book can be read in many ways. Same with movies: Lots of people may reject a movie on the grounds that "I know how it ends" (in IMDB comments, and many other places, you are expected to clearly mark your comment as a 'spoiler' if it reveals anything about the ending) - I often enjoy watching it for the second and third time because I know how it ends, and I want to see how all the small strands of the story leads up to that ending. Strangely enough, I have never heard any music lover rejecting, say, a symphony because "I know how it ends"
So you could probably read a novel such as Contact with little or no concern from what I consider the real, underlaying story, about social and political ideas and conflicts. The technology part, the action part, the 'science' part, are the only essential aspects.
Some people watch movies that way: If you ask what the movie was about, they immediately start telling about the fighting, the battles, the crazy car driving, ... When I stop them, and ask which conflicts it was about, they go on naming the actors on this side and on that side. But... Which ideas or ideals where driving the two sides? Then we are down to the philosopical level of "the good against the bad". (If you know the ending, you certainly know which side is the good!)
I had a similar experience with an SF book: I gave a copy of one really great SF novel, Daniel Keyes: Flowers for Algernon, to a coworker. The story has deeply influenced me, and several of my friends have been so deeply moved that they almost with tears in their eyes return the book with a quiet 'Thanks for letting me read it'. But this coworker of mine, highly intellectual who reads loads of books, returned to tell that the novel is just soooo nineteen-sixties, and went on to point out the outdated approach to psychological issues, and the outdated way of building up the conflicts. She rather preferred the modern writing style of [this and that] author ... Like a chemical analysis, determining the nutritional content without being the least concerned about the taste.
I guess 'Flowers for Algernon' is way outside your SF definition; it can be viewed as so many different kinds of story. Like my coworker who only relates to the new, 'modern' books, where you can easily find a bunch of comments and critics in current media. So if you pick up the novel, feel free to read it as something else than SF. You should - it is certainly worth reading!
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It's a Friday evening here, and I am about to shut down and pour myself a gin and tonic, but your reply deserves the courtesy of a response.
My position is simple - if the main story line is concerned with love, grief, power struggles, conquest, deceit, mass psychology or any other human or societal circumstances and emotions, why complicate it with science fiction, unless that science fiction is absolutely essential to the plot? Perhaps I have read some bad science fiction, but a lot of what I have read concerns themes that could just as easily, and what is more important, more believably, be set in a purely earth-bound narrative.
For me, if a science fiction story leaves me with a sense of wonderment about the universe we live in, then I feel it has truly succeeded - like how I felt when I walked out of the cinema after first seeing '2001: A Space Odyssey'.
Maybe I just have too much difficulty in suspending belief.
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I was tempted to answer "Sure." to OP. 
I share your thoughts about 2001.
In other registers, same feelings about Lost in translation and Dancer in the Dark.
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Chris C-B wrote: how I felt when I walked out of the cinema after first seeing '2001: A Space Odyssey'.
You mean 'well rested' after sleeping for 2 hours - right?
If you can't laugh at yourself - ask me and I will do it for you.
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You just got awarded the >>1024 answer of the month award. Congratulations !
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I am sorry - I wasn't aware that the Lounge was restricted to oneliners. I'll honor that rule from now on.
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Ursula Le Guin's The Dispossessed immediately occurred to me upon reading your third sentence. Wonderful work by a wonderful author.
Real programmers use butterflies
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Chris C-B wrote: if the core story could be written for any other genre, then it ain't SciFi.
I guess it therefore depends upon what you consider the "core story" to be. I've found most if not all science fiction to be retellings of classic themes in a science fiction setting.
By that reasoning, your list would not just be short - it would be empty.
Software Zen: delete this;
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No, not empty! To start, the two I have already mentioned match my criterion - 'Contact' and '2001', although '2001' was a film before it was a book. There many examples, like the original H. G. Wells 'War of the Worlds', 'The Mote in God's Eye', 'The Tommyknockers' and even TV dramas like 'Quatermass and the pit'.
The one thing I will concede is that the majority have one thing in common - earth science is pretty much 'present day', with the science fiction bit coming from an alien civilization.
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I only have one sci-fi book, Polaris, by Jack McDevitt. The main character gets involved in a 60 year old mystery about a crew disappearing from an interstellar yacht. It was one of those random grab books I picked up, and I enjoyed the read.
Otherwise, my bookshelves are lined with Fantasy novels; Forgotten Realms and The Wheel of Time sort of stuff.
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