My ten favorite science-fiction novels
Just for fun, here's a list of my all-time top ten favorite science fiction novels. This is not a list of the ten "best" or "most important" sci-fi books of all time, and this is not meant to be a critical list, it is rather my personal top ten based on book that I have liked the most over many years of reading. You'll notice that this list is fairly biased towards the present; most of the books were written in the past 20 years (I think only two of these books predate the 80s). Like I said before, this list isn't meant to be a fair overview of sci-fi greatness, just what I like out of what I have read. Similarly, it is biased towards genres I like, such as space exploration, futurism, and alternate history. These books are in no order. You mileage may vary. (click on the titles to get a full description from Amazon).

	Century Rain by Alastair Reynolds Century Rain is the newest novel on the list, and is a really intriguing mix of hard sci-fi, alternate history, and (believe it or not) a detective novel. Reynolds pains a very detailed and lyrical picture of both a devastated future Earth and the strange "preserved" "Earth 2" that is the main location for about half the novel. There's some really haunting scenes as well as some old-fashioned sci-fi wonderment. An excellent book.
	The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson This book came out of nowhere a few years ago, as Robinson has never written alternate history before, but managed to pull of a classic in his first attempt. Years of Rice and Salt follows the course of history on an Earth where the black plague killed off 99% of Europe rather then only 30%, and he then follows the unfolding of history. India and China become superpowers, Islam has the liberal reformation that it never had in our world, and the Native Americans of North America develop in fascinating ways. Robinson divides the story into numerous eras, and introduces "stock" characters in each era, always named starting the with same letters, adding a humanizing continuity into what could, in less talented hands, been an exhausting 1000-year journey.
	Evolution by Stephen Baxter Baxter has always been one of my favorite writers; he specialized in rock-solid "hard" sci-fi which almost always has a depressing ending that somehow still manages to leave you with hope. "Evolution" is nothing less then the telling of the entire history of the human race, starting with our mammalian ancestors from the Jurassic era through today and a distant future in which all we know on this Earth has evolved beyond recognition. The book itself consists of several dozen short stories featuring a protagonist from a different time in evolution. Baxter is very good at describing the lives and motivations of these animals, and painting a picture of the key changes in our history as our simian ancestors developed larger brains and more complex societies. Baxter also speculates in a few areas where there is no fossil record. This book will make you really think about life and destiny in a way you will not forget.
	Souls in the Great Machine by Sean McMullen This novel takes place 2000 years in the future in Australia, in the long-future aftermath of war and climate change that has destroyed our current civilization. The civilization that has risen faces many obstacles, including a religious prohibition against using electric or fossil power, and a strange alien "call" which drives unprotected people to wander to their deaths in the wilderness. The book is filled with fascinating human political drama and ingenious technology, all designed to get around the limits placed on society by religious mores, including wind-powered trains and a huge computer in which thousands of prisoners act as the registers of the "CPU."
	Blood Music by Greg Bear The seminal nanotechnology novel, written in the 1980s but with its descriptions of genetic engineering and nano manufacturing, it could have been written in 2006. One rogue scientists ends up unleashing an intelligent network on microscopic living machines that end up turning all of Earth into the famous "grey goo." "Blood Music" features an extended scene in a post-nano Manhattan that will stay with you long after you finish this one.
	Bring the Jubilee by Ward Moore A great "pure" alt-history classic which takes place in an America where the South won its independence in the 1860s from the United States, which is now a weak and depressed neighbor to a dynamic and powerful Confederate States of America. The protagonist is a poor young man from the North who dreams of being able to attend one of the great southern universities, and ends up falling in with a group investigating some intriguing conundrums in the field of physics having to do with causation...
	Coyote: A Novel of Interstellar Exploration by Allen M. Steele A good, old-fashioned space exploration novel. There's a political sub-plot (having to do with a future right-wing America), but this book works best when it is about the exploration, as the colonists land on a habitable, but truly alien world, and start exploring and building a life 65 light years away from Earth. There's also chilling and poignant sub-plot involving a crewman who is awakened from cold sleep early, and lives the rest of his life out on the silent ship as it cruises to its destination that would make a fine novella in and of itself.
	Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke A classic, from one of sci-fi's master: a strange, giant object enters the solar system, and a nondescript ship is sent to investigate it. Inside, they find mystery after mysery, an entire alien world to explore...but they only have a few days to find out as much as they can. Good sense of wonder.
	Fallen Angels by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, Michael Flynn Global warming has been done to death, but this book is unique for positing a near-future in which a new ice age is threatening the northern hemisphere. A technophobic United States has abandoned science in favor of religion (both right-wing and new age together united in their mistrust of technology and science) and actually wages a cold war against a small space colony in orbit. The "fallen angels" of the title refer to a crew from the space station which have crashed on the Earth, and are being pursued by a vengeful government while being hidden and helped by a pro-science underground.
	Eternity Road by Jack McDevitt The best of recent "post plague" novels. It's 1000 years in the future, and our civilization has been wiped out by some kind of biological disaster. Civilization has rebuilt itself to a fairly stable pre-industrial level, and people live their lives wondering at all the strange ruins of the mysterious and powerful civilization that vanished so long ago. A few more adventurous folks go on a quest across a the empty wilderness of ruins to find out what really happened, and this book is the story of their journey, and the beings (both human and robotic) that they meet.