Some Classic Science Fiction is Fantsstic!

I just read I AM LEGEND.

THE OMEGA MAN with Chuck Heston was a greatmovie.

I AM LEGEND with Will Smith is even better.


However; the book is the best.

The plot twist at the end where the last human alive has become the monster is astonishing.

In case someone is here and somehow living under a rock at the same time, Asimov is great. Some of the earlier writings (like Foundation) have dated technology, but you can't beat his hard sci-fi style. It was the 50s, overpopulation at 8 billion was the worst nightmare, but atomic piles on hand-carried blasters and book-films were the most expected things.

During my 80+ years, I've read books by a lot of SF authors. As of the end of 2015, I reviewed the many books I had acquired, passed some on to used book stores, but retained some I really enjoyed. Here is a list of the authors I retained:
Roger MacBride Allen..Keith Laumer
John Barnes...........Jack McDevitt
Greg Bear.............Larry Niven
Gregory Benford.......Jerry Pournelle
David Brin............Kim Stanley Robinson
Dale Brown............Christopher Rowley
Mike Brotherton.......Carl Sagan
Orson Scott Card......Charles Sheffield
Jack L Chalker........Neal Stephenson
John Dalmas...........John Stith
Gordon Dickson........Vernor Vinge
David Drake...........DAVID WEBER
Phillip Jose Farmer...Edward Willet
Robert L Forward......Robert Charles Wilson
Joe Halderman.........Timothy Zhan
Robert A Heinlein.....Robert Zubrin
Frank Herbert.........The Dune Saga
James P Hogan.........Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

Currently, I'm only reading David Weber's Safehold and
the Honorverse (third pass)
.
.

Anne McCaffrey was a wonderful writer who almost single-handedly codified the Riders of Dragons concept with her Dragonriders of Pern series. Her son Todd is trying to continue his mother's legacy and is not a bad writer, but somehow fails to capture that one spark of magic which she almost effortlessly captured.
She also wrote several other good series such as the Tower And The Hive set which uses psychic powers for Intersteller commerce.

Mercedes Lackey has a couple of good series, but the biggest is the Valdemar series which is mainly subdivided into trilogies and duologies, although there are a few longer subsections. She is notable for having one of the earliest sympathetic Gay heroes (Vanyel Ashkevron, Last Herald-Mage trilogy) which provided comfort to young gay men (and women), showing that while they may be different, they weren't freaks.

Tamora Pierce has two main series (Tortall / Circle of Magic), although there are a few hints that they are one big series set either several centuries apart or on different continents on the same world. The magic systems she uses tend to be internally consistent.

For epic storytelling, David Eddings is worth a look. His two fantasy series are massive in scope and showcase two different types of heroes. The Belgariad (13 books) has an innocent boy coming into his powers and learning about his past while the Elenium (6 books) has a past-his-prime-but-still-strong hero who is willing to do whatever is truly needed in order to protect those he loves.

Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga is, in my opinion, a true must-read. The main hero is almost the exact opposite of Honor, being a five-foot brittle-boned hunchback born to aristocracy, but he is probably the only Admiral who, given fleet parity, would have a chance to beat our favorite Weber Admiral. However, it's primarily about personalities and interactions with quite a few laugh-out-loud moments.
"Mother, father, may I introduce you to... she's getting away!"