I Just Bought...

[Spade]

I just bought:

Dolphin Island
A Fall of Moondust
Earthlight

and I already had:

2001: A Space Odyssey
Childhood's End
Imperial Earth
The Fountains of Paradise
Cradle (with Gentry Lee)

Honestly, the only book by his I've read is Rendezvous With Rama. I do avidly read his short stories from the complete collection I've read. Out of these, what should I read first, or which ones did you enjoy the most?

[j. d. worthington]

Personally... I'd go for Childhood's End, followed by Earthlight, and then 2001.... After that, I'm not sure I'd have too much of a preference, save for Cradle, which I think should come close to last.....

[AE35Unit]

Cradle is an over blown long winded book,mostly Lee's work i think. Read it once then allow to gather dust.
The ghost from the grand banks is another in that vain but its a better book. Childhood's End is superb,as is A Fall of Moondust,albeit an old story its quite tense.
Not read Dolphin Island,is that even SF?

[Spade]

Yes.

Late one night (in the world of the future), a giant cargo hovership makes an emergency landing somewhere in the middle of the United States, and an enterprising citizen named Johnny Clinton stows away on it. In the space of only a few hours the craft crashes into the Pacific Ocean. The sole survivor is Johnny, whose life is saved by the "People of the Sea"--dolphins. A school of these fantastic creatures guides him to an island on Australia's Great Barrier Reef. There Johnny becomes involved with the work of a strange and fascinating research laboratory, learns skindiving and survives a typhoon--only to risk his life again, immediately afterwards.

It looks like fluff.. but you know, what can you do?

[AE35Unit]

Sounds as exciting as The Deep Range,which I read once and wished i hadn't.

[Spade]

I tried reading Childhood's End but couldn't get into it. The writing style seemed to go over my head for some reason.

[mosaix]

In my view, that stuff with Gentry Lee was a disaster and should be avoided.

[Patrick Mahon]

Just read A Fall of Moondust this weekend, and thought it was really good - very well plotted, and with an engaging style. So I'd suggest that, if you haven't read it yet...