If you ask science fiction readers what the "best book" is, you will frequently hear that it is Dune, by Frank Herbert. I wouldn't necessarily disagree. Unfortunately, he only had one good book in him (in my humble opinion), and it is too bad that he kept writing, and then his relatives kept writing. And don't even talk to me about the movie. But Dune is an awesome book.

I love Robert Heinlein's books. I think though that he was several different people during the course of his writing. This book is typical of his middle period when I think he hit the peak of his writing.

The original robot stories from Isaac Asimov, complete with the Three Rules of Robotics. Don't even talk to me about this movie, either. It had the same name, but that was about it.

He has written some great novels too, but I love his short stores, especially "Nine Billion Names of God" and "The Star."

Much more recently written than the others above, I think this is destined to be a classic. You'll think differently about pizza delivery after this.

A great book, and also wonderful that it has a new and different plot (I love science fiction, but there is a distressing similarity between a lot of the plot elements).