Poll: what is your favorite piece of science fiction

[fix-the-spade]

Would have been Farscape,

but at the moment I'm suffering interest bordering obsession with Warhammer 40K, does that even count as sci-fi?

almost forgot:

Red Dwarf.

anything that makes you laugh wins by default.

 

[Kogarian]

Too hard to choose.

 

[Melaisis]

As for TV series; I'd have to go with Lost. How is that not sci-fi!?

Books? Quite easily the curious I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_No_Mouth,_and_I_Must_Scream]. At least it hasn't been made into a million, billion movies and other media adaptations, unlike everything else seemingly mentioned in this thread, heh.

 

[caseyday09]

Star Wars is great but there are 2 shows that are better. The Stargate shows and the best is Doctor Who. That shows is good that you must try watching it is great. (it is on SCI-FI and BBC America)

 

[Quistnix]

TV: Doctor Who
Movies: Blade Runner
Books: Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy

With the Doctor as the winner. Heck, I've got a replica Sonic Screwdriver lying on my desk as I type this. And in my bathroom is a multi functional towel with the number 42 on it.

 

[defcon 1]

I really love the Matrix.

Action + Good Philosophy = Win

Unlike smart people, I don't usually like movies that "teach" me things because it's usually content we should have remembered in elementary school. The Matrix truly made me think and question things I never would have bothered to ask myself before. The action always delivers, and visual effects impressed me. I also read all the comics and seen the Animatrix. I enjoyed them both!

I still don't like Revolutions or Keanu Reeves.

 

[Saskwach]

Farscape how we loved thee.
I also have a thing for Lord of Light. Hindu mythology, a fantasy setting that becomes sci-fi as the setting is explained, demigods. If you do not like this book your soul will not be reincarnated.

 

[redstar alpha]

bloody hell you will all think i am a nerd for saying this but warhammer 40k it has some of the richest back story that puts all of the above to shame (voting options i mean)
also torchwood is a million times better than doctor who

 

[mshcherbatskaya]

I'll just quote from an email exchange I had with a friend recently, trying to convince her to watch my televised drug of choice, BSG.

I can't help but enjoy the fact that they continue to go balls to the wall where other shows would have chickened out (Models 8 thru 11--are fucking kidding me?!? Jesus Baltar?! Divine visions?! OMGWTFJIMI??????") and it just makes me bounce. Also, unlike X-Files/Lost/Twin Peaks/Millennium/etc, I don't get the feeling that the show's creator is patting all his pockets trying to locate either The Point or his own ass.

Firefly is a close second, and I would have liked to have seen what they could have done if they had been able to develope it, but Battlestar Galactica just keep cruising deeper and deeper into plot space that would have utterly destroyed most other shows in just the initial attempt.

 

[fierydemise]

For me Dune by Frank Herbert is the best piece of science fiction out there.

I second this, with the Foundation series coming in a close second

 

[ReepNeep]

Firefly. They follow sci-fi rules better then anyone else... There's no fire or noise in space, etc, etc. Plus the humour's witty and has many good characters. But still who the hell was the priest guy anyway?! They killed him off before working out his background story! Tell me damnit!!

For Shepard Book's history, my best guess is that he was an ex-hand of parliment like the villain in Serenity was. Book certainly had a government background and had some serious combat skills. He doesn't strike me as the military type so that points to the clandestine services. He also knew quite a bit about the villain so perhaps they were colleagues at one point?

About the thread's actual topic, most of my favorites have already been mentioned: Neuromancer, Foundation (the first three anyway), Hitchhikers Guide, ect.

I would add John Brunner's 'Crucible of Time' (rather obscure I know, and I haven't read Stand on Zanzibar or Sheep Look Up) and why the hell hasn't anyone mentioned one of Kurt Vonnegut' works? The Sirens of Titan was awesome, problem rectified.

 

[brewbeard]

Black Destroyer by A E Van Vogt, which is the inspiration for a surprising array of creatures from the Displacer Beast in Dungeons and Dragons to the Coeurl monster in Final Fantasy games.

http://scifipedia.scifi.com/index.php/Black_Destroyer

 

[Quistnix]

I really love the Matrix.

Action + Good Philosophy = Win

I liked the Matrix. It gave me and the other people from my philosophy classes something to make fun of.

I just realised most of H.P. Lovecraft's work can be seen as sci-fi too, so that goes straight for the win.

 

[mathias53]

i cant decide Firefly or Enders Game ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

 

[mathias53]

thats what ive been saying. Shepard is an Operative (the villian in Serenity)

 

[jim_doki]

yeah, three pages in to the topic, and as yet nobody has Mentioned Red Dwarf. we combine drunken slob vs pretentious straight man comedy, throw in a mechanoid and an evolved cat, for good mesure mix liberally with a senile computer.

it is essentially made of win

 

[Mirika_the_warrior]

Well, what can I say? I am a science fiction junkie, all of the above accept starwars episodes 1-3, plus the addition of anything by Heinlin, Frank Herbert's Dune, and Alan Dean Foster's books.

 

[Pseudonym2]

What about Transmetropolitan or Futurama?

 

[TobyMobias]

TV: Doctor Who
Movies: Blade Runner
Books: Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy

With the Doctor as the winner. Heck, I've got a replica Sonic Screwdriver lying on my desk as I type this.

I just ordered mine!

...And in my bathroom is a multi functional towel...

Aw...I just have the regular uni-functional kind...XP