Looking for books (modern fantasy, sci-fi/cyberpunk)

[Volkerfrau]

If you can do with some more classic fantasy, I'd recommend The Once and Future King by T. H. White. It's a retelling of the Arthurian legends, written around the Second World War, and being a bit of an Arthuriana geek, I can definitely state that it's my favorite work. I find it hauntingly beautiful. There's five books in the series:

The Sword in the Stone
The Queen of Air and Darkness (Might also be found as "The Witch in the Wood")
The Ill-Made Knight
The Candle in the Wind
The Book of Merlyn.

Definitely my recommendation!

 

[someonehairy-ish]

Well, as for sci-fi, a good place to start would be with the classic authors; Arthur C Clarke, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, H.G.Wells, John Wyndham and Aldous Huxley. Asimov is my personal favourite.
Then read The Hitchhikers Guide err... 'trilogy'.

Oh, and read Neuromancer and Fahrenheit 451 and 1984. Those re all dystopian, vaguely cyberpunk novels.

And then read some of Christopher Brookmyre's stuff, because he's amazing. The only fantasy-ish novel he's done that I know of is 'Pandaemonium', so try that one first.

Can't think of anything else now. I'm sure Game Of Thrones has been mentioned?

The Passage and its sequel The Twelve by Justin Cronin

Those are excellent, but wouldn't they count as more horror/thriller than sci-fi/fantasy? I'd think so.

 

[ElectroJosh]

More in the specfic/sci fi genra, Neil Stephenson's Snow crash, The Diamond Age and Cryptonomicron for starters. Iain Banks' Culture novels starting with Consider Phebas.

Fanstasy novels, go for the first Law trilogy by Joe Abercrombie.

I will say that all these recommendations are correct. All of them, seriously Hoplon beat me to it.

You might also enjoy China Mieville's stuff. He has three books set in his fantasy universe; they are all stand alone so it doesn't matter what you tackle first but I suggest The Scar which is about a city built on a boat flotilla (I don't want to say much more than that so I don't spoil the ride) - they all have a steampunk feel to them without hammering you over the head with it. He also wrote a few set in days - Kraken is a good one full of strange creatures, odd cults and supernatural mafia running around modern-day london.

 

[HoneyVision]

For Cyberpunk look no further than Jeff Noon. His book are very good, Pollen, Automated Alice and Vurt are all first class.

Not sure about Fantasy, I stopped reading that years ago mostly because the majority of fantasy literature is nearly all the same and extremely predictable.

 

[chipshop hendrix]

Oh, and if you like steampunk: Definitely try and hunt down a copy of "Arcadia Snips and the Steamwork Consortium", by Robert Rodgers!

will check that out - cheers

 

[Fijiman]

I would suggest reading The Keys to the Kingdom series by Garth Nix. I've not finished the series myself(mostly due to not having been to the local library in years), but I'm pretty sure it fits under the description of the kind of books you're looking for.

 

[SerithVC]

Not exactly books but you could try looking up the Byron Chronicles and the Leviathan Chronicles. As for actual books, I can't think of any modern ones aside from the Pallidium Rifts Novels and the White Wolf World of darkness novels. I'm currently working on one though, still untitled and what not.

 

[wolf thing]

i really like the dragon riders of pern series by Anne mccaffery, it is what eragon was based of. i alos really like "the shadow of the torture" by gene wolfy, it is very long winded and focuses more on character than plot but its science/fantasy world os really cool. it like "dune" (which is great by the way) in the sense it has alot of made up words which mean it can be difficult to follow at times.

 

[Smertnik]

Thanks for the suggestions, guys! That's way too much stuff to look through at once but I'll keep this thread as a reference for future.

Short version: Go for the classics. Dick, Asimov (especially the Foundation series), Clarke (Rama is my favorite), Bradbury, Herbert (Dune Series), or look at the annual Hugo and Nebula awards and pick from there.

Can't help you with modern fantasy, I don't think I've ever read such a book. I can help you with Sci-Fi and some fantasy though. Be warned that some of these books can be pretty esoteric, like most of Philip K Dick's books, which are usually about drugs and subversion of reality. Most of the Sci-Fi books I read are more concerned with idea's than with characters, as that is the most classical school of science fiction. So if that's your thing, give it a look.

I never could get into the "proper" science fiction, to be honest. I'm well aware of the novels you listed and read maybe about half of them. I don't think I actually enjoyed even one of them, though. The classics are classics for a reason, sure, and many of them give you material to think about but I don't really read books for social commentary. I guess I should have clarified that more in the OP.
And I'm definitely not a fan of classic fantasy, either, especially LotR & co. I tried to read LotR about four times on occasions over the course of several years but never even managed to complete the prologue. The fact that whole classic fantasy setting bores me immensely didn't help the issue, either.

 

[Coppernerves]

I'm going to throw in the Illuminatus Trilogy, starting with The Eye In The Pyramid.

To quote wikipedia, (but yes I have read the trilogy myself)

"The trilogy is a satirical, postmodern, science fiction-influenced adventure story; a drug-, sex-, and magic-laden trek through a number of conspiracy theories, both historical and imaginary, related to the authors' version of the Illuminati. The narrative often switches between third and first person perspectives and jumps around in time. It is thematically dense, covering topics like counterculture, numerology, and Discordianism."

That sums it up pretty well I think.