Favourite Sci-fi

My favorite is “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” by Robert Heinlein, although I'd be hard put to explain exactly why.

It's set in the near future where Earth has turned the Moon (aka “Luna”) into a colony/prison camp to which are sent criminals and other “undesirables”. The people serve out their sentence working for the Lunar Authority, then are free - but stuck on the Moon because their body is weakened by 1/6th g and can't handle a return to 1g.

(This is true to a degree, although Heinlein greatly exaggerates the effects. We obviously don't yet know the effects of being born and raised in 1/6 g, but I'm sure they'd be amplified.)

Anyway. The people living in the Moon grow grain. The Lunar Authority buys the grain at a controlled price and ships it to Earth, charging all the traffic will bear. A few “Loonies” realise this is unsustainable, that the grain shipments must end - meaning they have to gain independence from Earth. No mean feat, given that they have a few hundred th

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ousand to Earth's billions and nothing with which to fight.

The people in charge of the Lunar Authority have no intention of losing their cash cow - but pretend they are “acting objectively in the best interests of those on Earth and Earth's Moon.”

So the book is the story of the fight for independence while working out what they'll do if they win. (Ever thought about how hard is it to set up a country from scratch?) An examination of the nature of humour and what it means to be human, computer science, what it takes to be a subversive, politics, joy and sorrow…it's a great story. 

The other is David Brin’s ”Uplift” series. It's true science fiction, complete with spaceships, aliens, strange new planets, and intrigue. True aliens - not just humans with a few extra tentacles. It's a six book series, and too complex to truly explain in a few paragraphs. So I'll just say that it's built around a really brilliant explanation for the evolution of intelligent life.