I love this thread! Thanks for all the suggestions.
Here's a few books that haven't been mentioned.
Childhood's End by
Arthur C. Clarke This extremely influential book (it even inspired a Led Zeppelin album cover) was at the core of the Human Instrumentality Project of Neon Genesis Evangelion. The story is about the next step of human evolution, precipitated by the arrival of an alien species.
The Rediscovery of Man by
Cordwainer Smith This book is a collection of all the science fiction short stories written by Smith (real name Paul Linebarger). It is a series of short accounts covering roughly 15,000 years of humanity from Earth to the stars.
The first time the collection was released, it was called
The Instrumentality of Mankind, which is where Hideaki Anno got the term for the Human Instrumentality Project in Evangelion. He insisted that the exact word 'Instrumentality' be used in translation as an homage to the book.
Paul Linebarger spoke 6 languages (including Chinese) and worked for the U.S. army intelligence where he helped start the first psychological warfare section (he also wrote a classic book on psy warfare). He even got to advise J.F.K. on foreign policy. He used all this background knowledge of language, foreign affairs, inner government workings, and psychological warfare to create very imaginative stories. Too bad he died at 43
Even though it isn't written anywhere, I wonder if the Crest of the Stars author got his ideas for planar space travel from Cordwainer's short stories.
Imajica by
Clive Barker Barker's favorite work, it is a sort of present day fantasy. The world is much greater and more magical than what we can see here on Earth because our plane of existence had been sundered from the other four; traveling to the other realms is difficult (you need special places and magic) and dangerous (between our world and the others, there is a sort of sea or hell called the In Ovo filled with "demons"). There are themes of salvation, sex, love and gender.
I recommend Kurt Vonnegut books, but they aren't for everyone. His writing style is very simple and from left field at the same time, the humor often black and strange, and there is always heavy criticism for religion, war, and the American Way. His are some of my favorite quotes. Here's a couple (the first one always kills me):
"She was a dull person, but a sensational invitation to make babies." from
Slaughterhouse-Five "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be." from
Mother NightThose two are from some of his best books. His last book,
Timequake, was a strange read. It felt half-assed, and sort of admitted to being so, but it also got into the habit of restating, in no uncertain terms, what he'd been trying to say in his earlier works. In the end, I enjoyed the book thoroughly. Here's a quote from it:
"Many people need desperately to receive this message: 'I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone."Even though it has been mentioned over and over in this thread, I'd like to give a shout out to the books from
A Song of Ice and Fire, they're my all time favorites.
