Name a scifi story or series that shaped your philosophy most..

[flaminbats]

for me it was Tripods. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tripods

Although the story appears to be taking place in the middle ages, you soon learn it is 2089 AD, and the Tripods are in control. The main characters learn that all people, who are taken up into the giant tripods when they reach 14, always come out without any personality and speaking very little. Will and Henry decide they will not wait to be capped and decide to make their voyage to the White Mountains. The Black Guard is sent after them. When they get to the White Mountains, they find something they never encountered before, thinking human adults who oppose the tripods and want freedom.

These thinking humans get Will into the Tripod city. Here he meets the Tripod masters, and begins to learn about the alien race has that control. His tripod master is fascinated in Will's spirit and interest, which other capped humans are lacking. Then the tripod master discovers that Will is not capped, and while angrily trying to confirm that..is killed in the process by Will. Will has learned allot from his Tripod master, and cries over his death.

The television series was never concluded. But watching it as a child encouraged me to treasure freedom of thought and speech. It taught me that our opinions of an enemy can quickly change. And that to a race that has the technology to travel faster than light, humans would probably be considered no more interesting than a family pet.

[YankeyMCC]

1. Probably Star Trek

But I'm familar with "Tripods", not the TV show (I would love to see tapes) but I remember getting the magazine "Boys Life" as a kid for a while and they serialized that story in there. Thats the only thing I remember from that magazine.

[Sabriel]

2. The Forgotten Door by Alexander Key

The visitor to Earth comes from a civilization where conflict is completely unknown (and abhorrent). I remember thinking at the time (1973?) how wonderful it must be. And now all I can think is how impossible it must be....

[ContraBass Black]

3. I read those stories.

Did you read the prequel?

[flaminbats]

4. I read just part of one of the books...

but I had borrowed "The White Mountains" from someone but that person wanted it back from me almost immediately! Now I know why..I can't find those books for sale in any bookstore!! :(

based on what little of the book I read, the TV series seems quite different from the books. Is that an accurate observation? which did you enjoy more?

[ContraBass Black]

5. I didn't see the tv series.

Just read the trilogy and the prequel, and then went on to the other post-semi-apocalyptic series by the same author.

[Nevernose]

13. They were all re-released in the last year or two

Including the prequel. I know, because I bought them last month so I could travel back to junior high. Still good reads, after all these years.

[Technowitch]

6. I'd have to go with "Godbody" by Theodore Sturgeon

Reason? Because its central message is that there is divinity in each and every one of us, however ordinary we may think ourselves.

It also happens to have been absolutely brilliant writing.

[RobertDevereaux]

37. A great choice! n/t

[phantom power]

7. Tricky, but I'm going to go with John Varley's "Titan"

It had a strong but tortured female captain/heroin. Back when that was pretty fresh. It had frank sexuality, including hot girl-on-girl action. Back when that was pretty fresh. It had advanced biotech and genetic engineering. It had a living god-like spaceship. It just generally had a great, cinematic imagery to it.

I read it when I was 13, so it was during those formative years for aesthetics and philosophy.

I still love reading it, 25 years later.

[ThoughtCriminal]

10. That is an interest choice

I have not read anything quite like the Titan series for a long time.

[Spacemom]

26. Ditto to that

I also read it at about 13. Made a huge impact. Now, almost 20 years later, Titan, Wizard and Demon remain in my top 10 I'd have to have on a deserted island.

[YankeyMCC]

8. 2nd entry

This tread popped back to the top and I just wanted to add another story that came to mind soon after I posted my "Star Trek" answer.

Star Trek came first to mind because it was basically a long term, almost ongoing, influence.

But also "Stranger in a Strange Land" had a very big impact on me. It was one of the very early - come to think of it it may have been the first 'serious' SF novel I read after Jack L Chalker's "Well World" series. I remember the radically different world view it presented through Michael's eyes gave me a lot to think about.

[ThoughtCriminal]

9. Childhood's End - Arthur C Clarke

I think this is one of the first serious novels that I read when I was maybe 11 or 12. I read it again a couple of times in my teen years. About two years ago, I found a copy and read it once more and discovered that reading it as an adult and parent was profoundly different. When you identify with what it would be like for the parents in the story, it hits you much harder.

[Reader Rabbit]

11. LeGuin's Hainish Universe Stories

Left Hand of Darkness is probably the most well-known of these, although I prefer the short stories found in her anthologies, particularly those in The Birthday of the World and A Fisherman of the Inland Sea. My absolute favorite, though, is Four Ways to Forgiveness, set on the slave worlds of Werel and Yeowe.

All the Hainish stories deal with what being human is all about, in ways that are both mind-stretching and mundane. However different the characters are from life as we know it here and now, they all seem to be dealing with issues with which we can identify.

[Delphinus]

12. Hope you don't mind an "outsider" jumping in here.

My philosophy is ever-changing and growing, but the series that has made the most impact is the Immortals series by Piers Anthony. I enjoyed each of them immensely, and it even made me look at the character of Satan in a whole different light.

[Nevernose]

14. My friends who hated reading LOVED those books

I started passing them around in the twelfth grade, and even my friends who couldn't stand the thought of reading a comic book were enthralled.

Unfortunately, I never read the "Satan" or "God" books. By then I guess I was too burned out on them, and, besides, by the time I knew of their release I'd read "Paradise Lost." What more can be said about Satan (or epic poetry, for that matter), after you;ve read "Paradise Lost?"

The book on Death was fantastic, though, if I recall correctly, and it also seems like I really enjoyed the book on war. Nature I remember as being boring, though, and Time was painfully confusing.

Maybe if I re-read them as an adult I'll get a different take.

[AllegroRondo]

30. I agree with that assessment

Death was a good story, so was War.

by the time he got to Evil and Good, it seemed like he was trying to hard to make sure he didnt contradict anything that happened in the first 5 books. And the story suffered as a result.

[Nevernose]

15. Anything by PK Dick; also The Forever War; 2001; Ender's Game

"Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" especially. It best exemplifies the Phildickian questions of "What does it mean to be human?" "What is the nature of humanity?" and "Just what IS sanity, anyway?" and, most important:

"What is reality?"

I've said a thousand times that in five hundred years, he will be remembered as one of the greatest American writers of the later 20th century.

[Mythsaje]

16. Oddly enough

Considering both authors could be considered "conservatives"

The Dune series and "Stranger in a Strange Land."

[YankeyMCC]

18. RAH gets the conservative label now

but he really started out pretty far to the left. You could probably fairly call him a libertarian throughout his life but I think he was pretty clearly on the left during "Stranger in a Strange Land." period.

BTW: I too count that as one of the formative novels of my life.

[banana republican]

17. The Starmaker

by Olaf Stapledon

1953

[cynatnite]

19. ST: TNG

That one really set me down the road to thinking that it was possible to have better than what we've got. Eliminating hunger. Can you imagine what that would be like? I can. I also liked tolerance and willingness to accept other cultures and ways of thinking so unlike ourselves. I love the ST philosophy. I never cared much for the prime directive in the show, but the rest of it...yep, that was it for me.

[KitSileya]

20. Heinlein's books, definitely.

Which is funny, 'cause I ended up as a liberal, freethinking, practising Catholic - talk about an oxymoron in terms!

For me, it wasn't so much Stranger in a Strange Land, which I only read in my early twenties, but Time Enough For Love and Number of the Beast-. Along with The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and To Sail Beyond the Sunset, they raised a heck of a lot of issues to think about, and agree and disagree with. I ended up writing my Master's Thesis on Heinlein ("Female Main Characters in Science Fiction: A reading of Robert A. Heinlein's Friday and To Sail Beyond the Sunset")

[Ian David]

21. Babylon 5

It's an even better "nightmare of multi-culturalism" than Star Trek!

The Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5
Guide to the series, including news, episode list, actor information, and archives.
www.midwinter.com/lurk/lurker.html

[krispos42]

22. The "Conrad Stargard" series by Leo Frankowski

I really enjoyed reading how much engineering and technical know-how could changes lives, and secretely wished it would happen to me! :-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conrad_Stargard

I also read a lot of the ST:TOS novels, especially the ones by Diane Carey. I read the covers off of Final Frontier, Dreadnaught, and Battlestations! when I was a teen. The nobleness of the Federation appealed to me, as well as the exploration of the universe.

The Mote in God's Eye[/i>] I would read for two or three hours at a time. After the first time I read it, I said "Wow", turned to page one, and began reading it again. It really introduced me to the politics of power and government and survival.

[TechBear_Seattle]

23. Speculative fiction in general, nothing specific

I can't think of anything in particular that shaped my philosophy. But I think the whole realm of speculative fiction -- sci fi, fantasy, alternative history, "what if", etc. -- has had a big impact on my ability to analyze facts, consider alternatives, and make note of when I am suspending disbelieve for the sake of entertainment and being just plain gullible.

[JitterbugPerfume]

24. A toss up between

Babylon 5 and Frank Herberts Dune series

[Forkboy]

25. The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson

This is a good summation;

The book is set between about AD 1405 (783 solar years since the Hegira, by the Islamic calendar used in the book), and AD 2002 (1423 after Hegira). In the eighth Islamic century, almost 99 per cent of the population of medieval Europe is wiped out by the Black Death (rather than the approximately 30-60% that died in reality). This sets the stage for a world without Christianity as a major influence.

The novel follows a jāti of three to seven main characters and their reincarnation through time, in very different cultural and religious settings. The book features Muslim, Chinese (Buddhist, Daoist, Confucianist), American First Nations, and Hindu culture, philosophy and everyday life. It mixes sophisticated knowledge about these cultures in the real world with fictional developments, partly resembling the actual history, but shifted and reflected by different cultural settings.

The main characters, marked by identical first letters throughout their reincarnations, but changing in gender, culture-nationality and so on, struggle for progress in each life. Each chapter has a different style, reflecting its setting.

Key issues of the novel are hybrid cultures; Progress and science; alternate history; philosophy, religion and human nature; politics; feminism and equality of all humans; and the struggle between technology and sustainability.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Years_of_Rice_and_Salt

I've read it twice and I plan on reading it again because I got so much from it each time.I've never read a book that covers so much so well,and gives you ideas to ponder for a long time you're after finished.

[FloridaJudy]

27. Kurt Vonnegut

Cat's Cradle and Slaughterhouse-Five blew me away. I wanted to become a Bokononist and visit Tralfamador. I know that Vonnegut is considered a mainstream author these days, but we SF geeks discovered him a long time ago.

[RobertDevereaux]

38. Yep, ditto this...

And I'd add, for me, Sirens of Titan.

[aljones]

28. Star Trek: TNG - a socialist society that really works

Not to mention all the vague warnings against such things as cloning!! Great TV show, i wish they would make more movies...

[AnnieBW]

29. Farscape

One human being is thrown across the galaxy to a place where the military is in charge, his best friends are escaped political prisoners, and everything is just frelling insane.

[rickrok66]

31. Star Trek and many others.....

I liked Gene Roddenberry's humanistic and optimistic outlook for the future. I liked all the ST series, especially the original and Voyager. My favorite chracters are the non-human ones because they work the hardest at being human: Spock, Data, 7/9, the Hologram Doctor.

I enjoyed reading Asimov's Foundation novels and a short story called "The Ugly Little Boy". The littl boy is a neanderthal brought top the future - it has a very humanistic message.

I read all the Dune novels. I liked the intrigue, but enjoyed the various political religious philosophies. The books caused me as a teenager to look up words like "Sunni", "Buddislamic", "Orange Catholic Bible", etc.

LeGuin's Earthsea novels are also a favorite. The themes of racial diversity were a first in science fantasy - and daring when applied to what could have been another sword and sorcery novel.

Finally, I am reading the Mists of Avalon series by Marion Zimmer Bradley. I heard about it and watched the TNT produced movie. The novel tells the Arthurian legend from a pagan point of view from the POV of the women in the myth. Morgan LeFey, The Lady of the Lake, and Queen Mabe are not evil as seen in other movies, but priestesses trying to deal with the coming of Christianity in Britain. It is far better than the bizarre love triangle of First Knight.

[intheflow]

32. Star Trek was the earliest.

I watched it in reruns endlessly in the '70s. But Stranger In A Strange Land entered in high school, and Slaughterhouse-Five and Cat's Cradle really rounded my education out in my 20's. I guess I got into The Twilight Zone in repeats in my 20's, too (God bless Nick At Nite).

I was raised completely unchurched, and I'd say that those sci-fi shows and books have shaped my whole life and spirituality as a minister working for peace and justice.

[Odin2005]

33. Star Trek and Kim Stanley Robinson's books.

[Forkboy]

36. Totally with you on K.S.R.'s books.

I mentioned the Years of Rice and Salt above,but all his novels are great.I'd pick him as my favorite living author right now.

[Deja Q]

34. Doctor Who, Blake's 7, Sapphire & Steel, Star Trek (TOS) to an extent

[shenmue]

35. They used to have...

these "best short stories of the year" collections, and my brother and I used to fight over them.

:)